History Characters / Persona3StartingMembers

'''S.E.E.S.''' ('''Starting Members''' [[[Characters/Persona3Protagonists The Protagonists]] | [[Characters/Persona3YukariTakeba Yukari Takeba]]] | [[Characters/Persona3LaterMembers Later Members]] | As the [[Characters/Persona4ArenaShadowOperatives Shadow Operatives]])\\

'''S.E.E.S.''' ([[Characters/Persona3StartingMembers Starting Members]] [[[Characters/Persona3Protagonists The Protagonists]] | [[Characters/Persona3YukariTakeba Yukari Takeba]]] | [[Characters/Persona3LaterMembers Later Members]] | As the [[Characters/Persona4ArenaShadowOperatives Shadow Operatives]])\\

[[Characters/Persona3SEES S.E.E.S.]] ('''Starting Members''' [[[Characters/Persona3Protagonists The Protagonists]] | [[Characters/Persona3YukariTakeba Yukari Takeba]]] | [[Characters/Persona3LaterMembers Later Members]]) | [[Characters/Persona3SocialLinksAndNPCs Social Links and NPCs]] | [[Characters/Persona3Antagonists Antagonists]] ]]-]]]

* TheFriendsWhoNeverHang: In the original release, Junpei doesn't have as close a relationship with the Male Protagonist as future [[TheLancer Lancers]] Yosuke and Ryuji would have with their respective leaders, due to spending majority of the story being hostile towards the Male Protagonist for his power and leadership skills. Junpei even lampshades it late-game who admits they haven't been particularly close. This is averted in ''Reload'' which gives more slice-of-life moments between the two.

* TookALevelInBadass: Steadily across the game, but especially after [[spoiler:Chidori dies]], where he nearly kills Jin with a massive fire blast. [[BeyondTheImpossible Jin is immune to fire]].

* UnstoppableRage: [[spoiler:In Vol.6 of the manga, he nearly kills Takaya with his reawakened Persona. In the game, he gets a brief burst of power that manages to knock back Jin and then nearly passes out.]]

* IncompatibleOrientation: She's on the receiving end of this, unknowingly. She has at least one fangirl at school. That said, Mitsuru herself is presumably straight given that she is a romance option for the Male Protagonist but not the Female Protagonist.

* TheRedMage: In the original ''P3'' releases, her Personas learned a healthy mix of offensive ice magic, healing magic, and status ailment skills. However, she only learns the strongest variants of Dia, which are single-target healing spells (in comparison, Yukari learns all sorts of party-wide and curative healing magic, along with Garu spells). Mitsuru also has the highest Magic stat in the original ''P3'' releases, where combined with Mind Charge and her access to the second most powerful Ice Magic skills, makes her good offensive option. In ''Reload'', she transitions from her role as a red mage to be rebalanced as the game's black mage, no longer having access to Dia line of skills.

* TheRedMage: In the original ''P3'' releases, her Personas learned a healthy mix of offensive ice magic, Dia line healing magic, and status ailment skills. She only learns the strongest variants of Dia, which are single-target healing spells, as opposed to Yukari who learns all sorts of party-wide and curative healing magic. Mitsuru also has the highest Magic stat in the original ''P3'' releases, where combined with Mind Charge and her access to the second most powerful Ice Magic skill, makes her good offensive option. In ''Reload'', she transitions from her role as a red mage to be rebalanced as the game's black mage, no longer having access to Dia line of skills.

Mitsuru is a third-year student of Gekkoukan High, the school's StudentCouncilPresident, and the daughter of the head of the influential Kirijo Group, which built the school. Her family's status gives her a great deal of influence within the school, enabling her to even issue orders to teachers if necessary. She is the first member of SEES, with the Persona Penthesilea of the Empress Arcana, which focuses on Ice and Healing magic. Mitsuru is also a member of the fencing club and wields a rapier in battle.

* CombatStilettos: She wears heels and her critical animation ends with kicking the enemy. One of her random dialog bits while exploring Tartarus in ''Reload'' has her mention how comfortable her boots are.
* TheComicallySerious: As demonstrated in many of the video clips, especially Junpei's. She also demonstrates it during Chihiro's social link.

* DependingOnTheArtist: In the original ''Persona 3'', Mitsuru's hair colour varies between her character model, portraits, key art and the animated cutscenes - her character model features a dark red that leans towards brown, her portraits give her dark red hair, whilst the animated cutscenes render her hair as being dark brown without any hints of red. Her appearances in the ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'' games are in-line with her ''P3'' character model, whilst [[Anime/Persona3TheMovie the anime adaptations]], ''[[VideoGame/Persona3DancingInMoonlight Dancing In Moonlight]]'', ''[[VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth Persona Q]]'', ''[[VideoGame/PersonaQ2NewCinemaLabyrinth Q2]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/Persona3Reload Reload]]'' all opt for a more vibrant red.

* {{Flanderization}}: Her infamous "execution" in the original game was a one-off gag during the HotSpringsEpisode, but spin-offs and even ''Reload'' make it one of her most notable characteristics. In the ''Q'' spin-offs, she will often threaten to "execute" Akihiko and Shinjiro whenever they're up to their antics. Her costume in the ''Arena'' duology and ''Cross Tag'' evokes dominatrix vibes that could be stemmed from the frequency of her executions.

* HiddenDepths: ''In Persona Q'', Shinjiro notes that she's almost as much of a BloodKnight as Akihiko is, and chides the P3 MC for being naive if he thinks otherwise. In the last labyrinth, Mitsuru also is eager to push a seemingly suspicious button (although doing so is necessary to advance) because she's tired of always being the "prize pupil."

* LadyOfBlackMagic: Composed, graceful, and her Persona's skillset makes her specialized in elegantly defeating enemies with ice magic. ''Reload'' even leans into this trait by getting rid of some of her healing support skills, rebalancing her set to exclusively focus on offensive magic or inflicting status effects, and her Theurgy gauge charges faster whenever she inflicts a status effect. ''Reload'' also gives her a characteristic that increases the party's likelihood of inflicting a critical hit on enemies with ailments while she's in the party.

* MagicKnight: She's a very skilled fencer, has access to the highest level Ice, healing, and status-change spells, and has the second-highest Magic stat in the game, which actually exceeds Yukari's by the end of the game courtesy of Ice Amp and Mind Charge. She's also noticeably more durable than [[SquishyWizard Yukari]] when she joins you. ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'' reduces the "knight" half of the equation somewhat, but she's still not the weakest physically. While she loses the healing abilities in ''Reload'' she still counts due to retaining her fencing prowess and gaining several ailment-inducing Slash skills to compensate.

* PillarsOfMoralCharacter: She herself had nothing to do with [[spoiler:the creation of the Dark Hour]], but she is determined to stop it anyway out of obligation for [[spoiler:what her grandfather set in motion.]] This also extends to the people and families (like Yukari) that were hurt by it. But this really shines in ''The Answer'', where [[spoiler:she stands with Yukari, even though she knows Yukari is wrong and could undo everything they fought for, simply because Yukari helped her get through her father's death in ''The Journey''. Because she owed Yukari that debt, Mitsuru was loyal to her no matter what.]]

* OvershadowedByAwesome: The stated reason he develops into the resenter, he realizes it's not that he envies the protagonist, but that he's afraid of losing his powers and his place in SEES.

* TheTeetotaler: Because of his [[AlcoholicParent father being an alcoholic]], Junpei seems to refuse to drink alcohol. When two friends invite him to sneak into Club Escapade, Junpei declines and raises his voice and one of them continues to be persistent.

* JackOfAllTrades: His Strength and Magic stats are both high, making him more or less equally effective with physical attacks and his Zio spells, plus a single-target heal and a full complement of debuffs, which are probably his most valuable assets. His only lackluster stat is his mediocre Luck. He keeps his versatility in ''Persona Q'' and ''Q2'', though he condenses his debuff selection to the (still useful) Tarunda set in exchange for a counterattack skill in ''Q'' and a good selection of physical skills in ''Q2''.

* NiceGuy: Out of all of the guys in S.E.E.S. who aren't the male protagonist, he's easily one of the friendliest (if a bit socially awkward), often going out of his way to check up on them and help them out.

* PlatonicLifePartners: With Mitsuru. They clearly trust each other with their lives, but nothing implies that they're more than friends. [[spoiler:''The Answer'' emphasizes this when Mitsuru takes Yukari's side when deciding on going back to the past or not - Akihiko's shocked, but doesn't bother arguing with her.]] He and Mitsuru remain this way even after graduation, though Mitsuru obviously isn't pleased with the effort it takes to keep track of him as he wanders the planet picking fights with the strongest people he can find.

* CombatStilettos: Her critical animation ends with kicking the enemy. One of her random dialog bits while exploring Tartarus in ''Reload'' has her mention how comfortable her boots are.

* CombatStilettos: Her critical animation ends with kicking the enemy.

* SensorCharacter: She functions as your first scanning character until Fuuka joins. Her persona isn't really suited for it, though, requiring specialized equipment in order for her to function as one. Once Fuuka joins the team, she's happy be back on the frontlines.

* AdaptationalIntelligence: In the original, she has a minor IdiotBall moment where she openly talks about the Dark Hour while Mr Ekoda and Natsuki are in the same room. ''Reload'' mitagates this by having her dismiss Ekoda from the office, while Natsuki is too wracked with guilt to really register anything.

** Also, putting others in danger to cover your own ass is a good way to really piss Mitsuru off. See how she tears Mr. Ekoda a new one when she learns that he covered up Fuuka's disappearance.

* BlackMage: ''Reload'' changes her skill loadout to focus almost exclusively on offensive magic and ditching access to healing, either through damaging abilities, inflicting status effects, or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs damaging abilities that also inflict status effects]]. Her Theurgy meter also fills up faster whenever she inflicts a debuff or a status effect on an enemy. The only active ability she has that doesn't target enemies is Concentrate, which powers up her magic attacks.

* {{Flanderization}}: Her infamous "execution" in the original game was a one-off gag during the HotSpringsEpisode, but spin-offs and even ''Reload'' make it one of her most notable characteristics. In the ''Q'' spin-offs, she will often threaten to "execute" Akihiko and Shinjiro whenever they're up to their antics. Even her costume in ''Arena'' duology evokes dominatrix vibes.

** This is averted in ''Reload'', where she is a major character in Shinjiro's Linked Episodes where she tries to get him to return to Gekkoukan so he can fulfil his promise to graduate alongside her and Akihiko.

* LadyOfBlackMagic: Composed, graceful, and her persona skillset makes her specialized in elegantly defeating enemies with ice magic. ''Reload'' even leans into this trait by getting rid of some of her healing support skills, rebalancing her set to exclusively on offensive magic or inflicting status effects, and makes her Theurgy gauge charge faster whenever she inflicts a status effect. ''Reload'' also gives her a characteristic that increases the party's likelihood of inflicting a critical hit on enemies with ailments while she's in the party.

* RoyalRapier: ''C'est Magnifique.'' More noticeable in ''Portable'' and ''Reload'', as rapier-like weapons are in their own weapon class for Mitsuru to make them different from MC's one-handed swords.

* SensorCharacter: She functions as your first scanning character until Fuuka joins. Her persona isn't really suited for it, though, so she's happy to be able to help more directly.

* SpellBlade: Her Theurgy attacks combine her magical capabilities with her fencing prowess.

* SugarAndIcePersonality: She seems cold and professional and hides some information, but she actually cares a lot about her friends and the group as a whole. She simply has difficulty trusting others and a large sense of responsibility that tend to mask her better nature. It makes for quite the spectacle at the end of her social link.

* UnskilledButStrong: Unless almost everyone else, who handle their weapons with some manner of finesse, Junpei accomplishes Shadow kills by swinging a {{BFS}} as hard as he can like it's a baseball bat.

* LoveableJock: He's a huge baseball fan but is a pretty friendly doofus of a guy who quickly makes friends with almost everyone.

* OppositesAttract: The happy-go-lucky LoveableJock Junpei [[spoiler:falls for the sullen ElegantGothicLolita Chidori. And in the endings where she survives, it's implied that they stay together.]]