Characters / Persona 4: Arena - Antagonists

Persona 4: Arena and Ultimax characters index
The Investigation Team | Shadow Operatives | Unaffiliated Fighters | Allied NPCs | Antagonists

For the Persona series, see this page.

WARNING: The descriptions within these sheets assume that the reader has played Persona 3 and Persona 4. As such, it contains UNMARKED SPOILERS regarding the stories of both games. Viewer discretion is advised.

Antagonists (MAJOR SPOILERS)

General Teddie

Teddie with a beary bad attitude.

An Evil Knockoff of Teddie who runs the P1 Grand Prix. Although at first believed to be Teddie, it quickly becomes apparent that he's an impostor.

General Teddie is actually a disguise taken on by two separate characters, Shadow Labrys and the Malevolent Entity respectively, and as such, this folder focuses on the disguise as a whole.

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• Bears Are Bad News: A stark contrast to the bear he impersonates, General Teddie is callous, antagonizing, and loves seeing friends fight each other.
• Covert Pervert: He may be evil, but it's still Teddie. Highlighted in one scene in Naoto's story mode:
  Gen. Teddie: Hey hey! Enough with the chitchat! Hurry up and move onto the next—
  Aigis: Would you like to know your measurements? From top to bottom, they are...
  Naoto (flustered): Th-that's quite alright!
  (Gen. Teddie gives a moan)
  Gen. Teddie: Never mind little old me! Please, finish that line of thought. I demand it!
• Evil Knockoff: To Teddie: while the real Teddie is a heroic character, General Teddie wants nothing more than to see the Investigation Team kill each other.
• The Heavy: He is General Teddie after all.
• Laughably Evil: Whether it’s Shadow Labrys or the Malevolent Entity, General Teddie always imitates Teddie's mannerisms, only evil. It's hilarious, especially when arguing with the real Teddie.

Shadow Labrys

Shadow Labrys (The Raging Bull of Destruction)

I am a Shadow, ruin incarnate!

^{Click here to see Asterius}
The Minotaur of Crete

"I am a Shadow… The true self…"

Arcana: Wheel of Fortune
Shadow: Asterius
Main Weapon: Great Axe
Style: Tandem Attacks

Voiced by: Ayana Taketatsu (Japanese) / Cindy Robinson (English)

Labrys' Shadow, born from Labrys' desire to be a normal girl. She is responsible for creating the "P-1 Grand Prix", as well as the true identity of General Teddie. With the ability to manipulate her surroundings, she created the rendition of Teddie inside the TV world.

Her berserk form is that of Asterius, the mythical Minotaur, which she uses in conjunction with her Labrys form in battle. In Ultimax, she returns as an alternate personality within Labrys, who can wield Asterius instead of Ariadne as a Persona.

Shadow Labrys' Instant Kill is Labyrinthos Gate, a two-part command grab. First, Shadow Labrys becomes imbued with Asterius' dark energy. By repeating the same input, she attemps to grab the opponent, and if successful, she tosses them into a portal leading into a maze-like dungeon. Asterius then emerges from the depths and devours them as the camera pans outward towards the maze entrance as the victim's screams can be heard, while Shadow Labrys stands alone laughing.

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• And Now for Someone Completely Different: When Labrys is under Sho's control in Ultimax, the lack of Labrys' own control allows her Shadow to take over. You then play as Shadow Labrys to kick the crap out of Sho.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Shadow Labrys is the only character in the game who can combo into her Instant Kill. However, she needs to be in Awakening with a burst and a lot of SP, and she must force her opponent to use their burst beforehand in order to ensure that the IK hits. Once those conditions are satisfied, though... as of Ultimax, she can no longer combo into her Instant Kill. On the other hand, her average damage has roughly tripled and her maximum damage output is well over 10,000. If she's in Awakening with plenty of SP, any hit will turn into an epic kill combo.
• Ax-Crazy: No pun intended.
• Back from the Dead: Labrys' black box contains the personalities and experiences of every anti-Shadow weapon she's confronted, including her Shadow, allowing her to come back in Ultimax.
• Barbaric Battleaxe: The normal Labrys is a polite and caring individual, while Shadow Labrys is a bloodthirsty and reckless attacker who loves fighting and destroying others with her giant battle axe.
• Bears Are Bad News: As General Teddie.
• Berserk Button: When Mitsuru intentionally mentions her full name to her while in General Teddie form, Shadow Labrys suddenly loses it and complains to her about how it's all the Kirijo group's fault. This is also an inversion to how Labrys usually reacts, where she usually cowers in fear of Kirijo and their power, but Shadow Labrys was making this statement for revenge of the same incident. She also has a very negative response to being ordered around and controlled, which is quite understandable given Labrys' Dark and Troubled Past. To hammer the point home, in Ultimax when Sho tries to control Labrys again, Shadow Labrys wrests control from both of them just to hand Sho his ass while destroying the remote control.
• Blood Knight: As if her title didn't give it away. Even by Shadow standards, she loves fighting and smashing things a bit too much. Becomes her defining personality trait in Ultimax when it's revealed she's still alive and developing her own personality.
• Break Them by Talking: Pretty standard for a Shadow. However, in Ultimax, she royally schools Sho in the art of trash-talking.
• Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Shadow Labrys is a Blood Knight who loves destroying her opponents, which is complimented by her double-bladed battle axe that is as tall as her.
• Camera Abuse: Asterius, when using Challenge Authority, punches straight into your screen, creating cracks and static. One of her victory poses also has Asterius completely wreck it.
• Chained by Fashion: Asterius is covered in chains.
• A Chat with Satan: Comes with being a Shadow. She exists to show Labrys the parts of herself the original refuses to acknowledge.
• Covert Pervert: Remember the quote under this trope in General Teddie's folder? Yeah, that's Shadow Labrys in disguise. Either she's a really good actor, or there's something going on there.invoked
• Dark Is Not Evil: As of Persona 4 Ultimax: she's still the same ball of hatred and bloodthirst she always was, but she shares her other self's love of her friends and willingly cedes control after saving their lives.
• Deconstruction: How do you become normal if you're a weapon built to fight and kill? Make fighting and killing the new normal by forcing everyone else through the same hell as you.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Comes with being a Shadow.
• Downloadable Content: Asterius and its Picaro variant are DLC Personas available in Persona 5 and Q2, and Tactica.
• The Dreaded: Out of all the Shadow Selves the Investigation Team encountered, Shadow Labyrs is likely the most terrifying one. As a being born from Labrys' desire for battle, her Shadow is batshit insane in both her personality and fighting style. Even her Persona, Asterius is downright frightening. When she returns in Ultimax, everyone is terrified of her, including the Shadow Operatives, who have years of experience fighting Shadows and two Eldritch Abominations.
• Fragile Speedster: Along with Elizabeth, she has the lowest HP of the cast, while her mobility is top-class. Asterius may be slow, but Shadow Labrys herself is quite fast.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In Ultimax, you can play as Shadow versions of most characters, which trade out the ability to use bursts and raw damage for doubled SP gain and other bonuses. Interestingly, Labrys is one of these characters you can use the Shadow mode on, despite Shadow Labrys already being a separate character on the roster (With a completely different Persona to boot; Shadow Labrys uses Asterius, but Labrys in Shadow mode still uses Ariadne). Averted in the story mode, where Shadow mode Labrys is one of the many Shadow doppelgangers made by Sho.
• Glass Cannon: On offense, she can hit like a truck and has several deadly setups. On defense, she's vulnerable to Persona Breaks, since Asterius is always out (this is alleviated in the sequel by the fact that she now has six Persona cards) and has only 8000 health… the joint lowest among the playable cast. Ultimax improved her defensive options.
• Gratuitous English: When air-throwing an opponent, Shadow Labrys's commonly taunts the opponent by saying "BYE-BYE" while hurling them toward the wall. Interestingly, the line is the same in both her English and Japanese voice tracks, so it's perfectly normal if using English voices and Gratuitous if you're using Japanese voices.
• The Heavy: In her General Teddie guise, she holds the tournament that causes most of the game's events.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • She becomes Ariadne following her ego's acceptance.
  • In Ultimax she shows up again in her old form to protect regular Labrys from Sho, though she will not admit she cares about Labrys now.
• Humanoid Abomination: Though she looks human, she's actually a shape-shifting monster born from the darkness in Labrys' heart and can warp the perception of those around her.
• Humiliation Conga: In Elizabeth's story mode. Elizabeth blows up the monitor and speakers Shadow Labrys was speaking through mid-sentence, breaks down all the invisible walls she comes across that Shadow Labrys set up that the rest of the cast can't even scratch with barely any effort, randomly butts in on their final confrontation, annoys, humiliates, and threatens her, and then crushes her in battle.
  Shadow Labrys: How could it end like this…? It's all… completely ruined…
• Ignored Enemy: To Elizabeth, who treats her barriers as nothing more than inconveniences and cheap parlor tricks.
• Irony: She's the Shadow... of an anti-Shadow weapon.
  • She has the lowest health in the game. Shadow-type characters have increased health.
• I Shall Taunt You: She's an endless tide of mockery, because she knows people make mistakes if they're too mad or intimidated to fight back.
• Knight of Cerebus: Once she reveals her real identity she's played completely seriously, except for Elizabeth's story. Compared with other Shadows, she's much more malicious, unlike most of them she has no interest in being accepted, she goes out of her way to make Labrys reject her so she can kill her and exist on her own so she can everyone in the world.
• Large Ham: The part of Labry's personality that has all her hatred towards the world acts the part as a unfettered mass of rage that shows her anger in almost every line she speaks.
• Laughably Evil: As General Teddie. She's imitating Teddie's mannerisms, only evil. It's hilarious, especially when arguing with the real Teddie.
• Laughing Mad: Practically her trademark. Almost every scene has her laughing while staring down her opponents. In Ultimax story, every other line has her laughing while fighting Sho.
  • Hell, she's this outside of story mode — her battle dialogue has her laughing her ass off frequently. At least when she's not screaming.
• Leitmotif: Shadows of the Labyrinth
• Literal Split Personality: Comes part and parcel with being a Shadow, of course. Gets inverted in Ultimax when she's revealed to still be around because of Labrys' black box and is developing her own personality, but is now confined to said black box… unless Labrys consciousness somehow weakens, in which case she can take over the body.
• Master of Disguise: Pretends to be General Teddie and Rise for most of the story. Also briefly makes herself look like Nanako to confuse Yu in his storyline.
• Master of Illusion: Distorts the images of everyone with illusions to make them fight each other. Oddly enough, this ability comes from being part of Labrys instead of from being a Shadow.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Asterius/Asterion, the Minotaur of legend who was trapped in an inescapable Labyrinth and each year brought tributes to feed its hunger.
  • Not to be confused with a second Asterion, who was seduced by Zeus and eventually gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon, two judges of the dead (former two) and two kings (latter two). A very ironic Inversion.
  • Ariadne, the Minotaur's half-sister.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Other characters' Personas only appear for a short while to perform attacks, and then disappear. Shadow Labrys' "Persona" Asterius, however, stays on screen the entire time, follows Shadow Labrys around, and can attack at the same time she does. To compensate for being around all the time, Asterius has damage-dependent armor so he can't be broken easily, and Shadow Labrys' heavy Persona attack is a command to force Asterius to block. Playing Shadow Labrys is effectively controlling both her and Asterius at the same time.
• Mighty Glacier: Asterius is the slowest Persona in the game, and is constantly a target, but does massive damage and has a number of defensive options.
• Moveset Clone: Subverted. While Shadow Labrys and her other self have similar character attacks in appearance, they actually have almost completely different properties other than attack range. This isn't even getting into their personas, which have completely different movesets. Their moveset divergence became pronounced in Ultimax, despite Shadow Labrys gaining a variation of Labrys's Chain Knuckle. While Shadow Labrys and Labrys always had key differences in their movesets that set them apart as fighters, the two were much more similar in Arena than they are in Ultimax.
• Morphic Resonance: Since Shadow Labrys is Labrys with a massive Minotaur floating behind her, Ariadne heavily resembles Labrys herself, as opposed to the Personas of the Investigation Team, which all held a degree of resemblance of their own more warped-looking Shadows.
• Multi-Slot Character: A roundabout case in the duology. Both versions share the same moves, with the normal Labrys gaining power based on her axe's power tiers, while Shadow Labrys is a Glass Cannon. As explored in the first game's story mode, Shadow Labrys is the shadow self of the original, born from Labrys' desire to be a normal girl. After the original is defeated during the P-1 Grand Prix tournament, players have to contend with Shadow Labrys, who fights using Asterius. After being defeated, Labrys accepts her Shadow self, where the Shadow then transforms into her true Persona, Ariadne. The P3 Route of Ultimax's story mode reveals Shadow Labrys is stored within Labrys' mind as a separate personality, where after Sho Minazuki attempts to hijack Labrys the same way he did in the first game, Shadow Labrys takes control to fight Minazuki, calling upon Asterius as her Persona in the process. Once the fight is over, Shadow Labrys concedes control back to her original self out of boredom, though the normal Labrys believes she was helping her.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Her Ultimax trailer sets up her to return with the implication that she's a separate being from Labrys and a central antagonist once again. Not only is she not among the fake Shadows wreaking havoc and is still inside Labrys, but when she does finally take over, it's to save her and she goes back to being dormant right after.
• No Campaign for the Wicked: Shadow Labrys is the only one without a Story Mode, both in Arena and Ultimax. She does become playable for one fight during Labrys' story in Ultimax, however.
• No Indoor Voice: One of her match start entrances begins with her laughing before she shifts to a full on scream. One of her more distinctive features is her constant wailing (and just like the rest of the cast, she has character-specific quotes for the opponent she's fighting). When she isn't screaming, she's laughing, and if she isn't doing either... you're not going to like what's next.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Her personal goal is to destroy everything.
  I want everything to break into a million pieces, over and over again!
• One-Winged Angel: Her Asterius form, triggered by her original's rejection. Though unlike most Shadows, she keeps her Doppelgänger form around for the fight too.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: Asterius has a rather demonic bull skull for a head and is based on the mythological Minotaur from Greek mythology.
• Palette Swap: Like with Sho and Minazuki, she has completely separate alternate colors from those of her other self. In Ultimax 2.0, she also gets a darker color scheme than Labrys, like Minazuki does in comparison to Sho.
• Precision F-Strike: Her response when Elizabeth, the most powerful character in the game canon-wise, interferes with her plans and goes on to have a casual chat with Yu.
  Stop ignoring me, bitch!
  • In Ultimax, she taunts down Sho after he attempted to control Labrys. It really pissed her off, and she took the opportunity to taunt him down.
  Kiss my skinny metal ass, you punk kid!
• Psychotic Smirk: As with most other Shadow Selves, especially noticeable in the Instant Kill portrait. Plenty of her win poses feature one as well.
• Puppet Fighter: Unlike the other characters whose Personas only show up to initiate attacks, Asterius is on the field constantly and has its own button inputs as well as the ability to block, requiring he player to control both Shadow Labrys and Asterius at the same time.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": It comes with having No Indoor Voice but shows up just about everywhere. She actually taunts and laughs at opponents when blocking or dodging attacks.
• Reality Warper: Creates endless invisible walls throughout her dungeon to force opponents towards each other.
• Rocket-Powered Weapon: Her axe still has the rocket boosters. They're not nearly as critical to her fighting style as they are to her other self, though.
• Rocket Punch: Shadow Labrys gains a variation of her other self's Chain Knuckle move in Ultimax.
• Sanity Slippage: Her illusions of the Investigation Team and Shadow Operatives grow increasingly insane as the story goes on.
  Illusion: I had to keep killing, over and over… all because of you humans! It hurts… It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In Ultimax, she switches back to Labrys of her own will rather than have to go through more "friendship games".
• Shadow Archetype: Of Labrys.
• Signature Move: In Persona 5, Asterius and Asterius Picaro have the unique skill Titanomachia, a severe damage fire element skill that has a high chance of inflicting the Fear status ailment.
• Superpowered Evil Side: And much like Evil Ryu, Orochi Iori, Devil Jin, and Pyrrha Omega among others, she possesses a different moveset from her original.
• Smug Super: Considers herself superior to ordinary Shadows like Teddie. Even more so after her revival. Several of her win quotes have her gloating at her superiority over various cast members.
• Spanner in the Works: In the P3 story of Ultimax, Sho's attempt to use Labrys in order to kill Mitsuru backfires when Labrys' weakened consciousness allows her to take over and promptly go postal on him.
• Super Mode: Titanomachia allows Asterius to execute up to 3 powered up attacks in succession before finishing with a full-screen blast of flames. The full-screen attack can also be performed on its own.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Comes with being a Shadow.
• Squishy Wizard: In terms of durability, she's heavily outclassed by Labrys, but she makes up for it with Asterius.
• Tarot Motifs: The Reversed Fortune represents bad luck, out of control, and negative external forces. This represents Labrys's Dark and Troubled Past, her failed attempt to escape Yakushima, and unable to live a normal life as a human due to her nature as a robot.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Yukiko's story mode trailer completely gives away that Shadow Labrys is not the real Teddie.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Ultimax. Gameplay-wise, Asterius now has six Persona cards instead of four to make up for his constant (target-able) presence on the field; however, this is a mixed blessing, as if Shadow Labrys enters Persona break, it now takes longer for Asterius to return. She also received major buffs to her moves and damage, making her much more threatening without Awakening than she was in Arena, as well as gaining two new moves. Storyline-wise, she's now a bona-fide Literal Split Personality in Labrys' Hive Mind that has enough independent will to summon Asterius as a genuine Persona whenever she takes over the body.
• Unwitting Pawn: Of the Malevolent Entity, who uses her plan to make the rest of the cast fight each other to try and turn everyone's Personas back into Shadows.
• Villainous Rescue: Shadow Labrys is still alive in Ultimax through Labrys' Hive Mind, and still an Ax-Crazy and vicious Omnicidal Maniac, but she still saves her from Sho's remote control just because she wanted to, not that she'd ever admit it.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Can transform between her normal form and General Teddie form at will (though technically speaking, this is just an application of her Master of Illusion power rather than actual shapeshifting).
• Weakness Turns Her On: Hinted at in one of her victory quotes:
  Shadow Labrys: (Laughing) You're so cute... and weak...
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She's the part of Labrys who wants the world to be hurt as much as she was hurt.

SHO Minazuki

SHO Minazuki (The Rule-Smashing Pun Machine)

A volatile fighter with a sword in each hand!

"We're gonna change this damn world!"

Arcana: Sun
Persona: None
Main Weapon: Twin Katana
Style: Physical Only

Voiced by: Kenichi Suzumura (Japanese) / Todd Haberkorn (English)

A new character introduced in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, and the true identity of the Eerie Voice from Arena. Sho is a mysterious red-haired youth who wields twin katanas and denounces the concept of friendship. His first appearance is at the climax of Arena's story mode, where he takes control of Labrys and forces her to attack her new friends, before explaining his motivation to gather data on the Investigation Team and disappearing. He appears in Ultimax in the midst of the chaos caused by the Red Fog and gleefully admits to being behind it as well. With an almost childlike sense of cruelty, he has declared that he will destroy this world and all that stands in the way of his goal.

In actuality, Sho is one of several adopted children of Shuji Ikutsuki, one of Persona 3's main villains. Being the son of a Mad Scientist, he was used in the same experiments that Labrys underwent, except this time his "siblings" were human beings and a solitary lifestyle was enforced upon him by Ikutsuki, who knew full well of what he considered the failure of Labrys' experimentation. Eventually, Sho emerged the only remaining survivor, and had a Plume of Dusk implanted within him, creating MINAZUKI. MINAZUKI, however, was not someone who could obey orders without question, and so Ikutsuki deemed Sho a failure and dumped him in a hospital in Yasoinaba with a sizable inheritance. Left to fend for himself in a world he didn't understand and couldn't be understood by, Sho grew angry and hateful towards it, wishing for humanity's destruction. This caught the attention of the Malevolent Entity, who offered to grant his wish. Sho accepted the offer, setting in motion the events of the first Arena game.

While Sho himself can't use a Persona, and is jealous of Persona users, he has a second personality that can use the Persona Tsukiyomi. Because of the lack of a Persona, Sho also does not have an instant kill.

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• Applied Phlebotinum: Has a Plume of Dusk inside him, the same material that gives life to Anti-Shadow Weapons like Labrys and Aigis.
• Avenging the Villain: Wants revenge on the Shadow Operatives for killing his adoptive father Ikutsuki, though Sho himself claims that it's one of his least-prioritized things by the time it's been brought it up.
• Ax-Crazy: You know when you are dealing with a psychopath when one of his introduction line is "It's murdering time!".
• Big Bad Duumvirate: With the Malevolent Entity. Though Sho plans to outwit the Entity by hijacking its power with Adachi's power, while the Entity thinks of Sho as nothing but an Unwitting Pawn to get his hands on a more powerful body; making this devolve into a Big Bad Ensemble.
• Blood Knight: He was raised as a Child Soldier, so naturally fighting is all he knows. He sports a wide grin whenever he finds a good fight.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes": Constantly denies that he is trying to get revenge for Ikutsuki's death, but when confronted about it after Kagatsuchi is defeated, he admits that Ikutsuki was all he had, thus his reasoning for fighting.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Introduces himself as the one responsible for covering Inaba in red fog.
• Combat Pragmatist: Attacks Naoto right after her fight with one of the Shadow Dopplegangers in an attempt to kill her. While it fails thanks to Labrys, Yukari, Ken, and Koromaru pulling a Big Damn Heroes moment, it's clear he knows who're the ones to worry about. He also captured the Shadow Operatives right away, getting rid of the ones who would be the biggest Spanner in the Works. He also throws the Investigation Team into a situation replicating the Dark Hour which they have ZERO experience with.
• Computer Voice: When speaking through Labrys.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Strega and Adachi from Persona 3 and 4 respectively:
  • One thing he holds over both parties is that he's an Empowered Badass Normal who doesn't have a Persona and is also a potential guest of the Velvet Room.
  • Adachi is a Serial Killer who happened to be picked by Izanami as part of her experiment to see if humans preferred living in a fog of delusions rather than face reality as it is, and happens to be a member of law enforcement. Sho is a high-school student who was also picked by a god, though his relationship with said god is more close compared to Adachi not knowing Izanami existed beyond some vague implications.
  • Everyone in Strega possesses a Persona, albeit artificially, which causes them some severe health problems. While involved in a similar experiment, Sho never developed a Persona and instead created Minazuki, a split-personality who does possess a Persona.
• Covered with Scars: His face scar isn't the only one he has◊. A scene in the manga shows his upper torso is covered in scars, likely getting them from the experiments he underwent while under Ikutsuki.
• Dual Wielding: Wields a pair of katana.
• Embarrassing Nickname: The original Sho's nickname from the lemony narrator is "The Rule-Smashing Pun Machine".
• Empowered Badass Normal: Doesn't have a Persona by default, yet is still able to go toe to toe with Persona users and Shadows through sheer superhuman prowess. His enhanced physical abilities come from having a Plume of Dusk implanted inside him.
• Evil Counterpart: Played with. It's initially subverted in that he has the potential to become this to Yu and Aigis, but he rejected a contract with the Velvet Room. That said, the Velvet Room residents all imply Sho is destined to become their newest guest, and the events of the True Ending see Sho on the path of Character Development after becoming a proper Persona-user himself, so whether he does end up becoming an Evil Counterpart to his predecessors remains to be seen.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Inherited Ikutsuki's tendency to make awful puns, which even Yukiko and Teddie find hideously unfunny.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Take a good look at his eyes and you'll notice that his irises have gray rings in the middle, similar to those of Aigis and Labrys. This might have something to do with the fact that he has a Plume of Dusk.
• Faux Affably Evil: Is polite to the heroes and even explains part of his plan at the end of Arena, while also thinking of everyone as nothing but "test data". This is because Sho is trying to replicate the mannerisms of the Faux Affably Evil Shuji Ikutsuki.
• Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: His motive. He finds HUMANITY like this.
• Fiery Redhead: A bratty kid with bright red hair who uses a fighting style that focuses on nothing but offense.
• Final Boss: In story mode for the Persona 4 cast, except Naoto (who fights the Malevolent Entity instead) and Teddie (who ends up fighting Kanji of all people). In Ultimax he serves as the final opponent in arcade mode for about half the cast.
• Flawed Prototype: Zigzagged. Sho can be considered a predecessor to the Strega of Persona 3, as a Plume of Dusk was implanted within him in an attempt to forcefully manifest a persona. It didn't work as intended; Minazuki's consciousness was born as a result but he had successfully awakened a Persona, who is much more stable and stronger than the artificial Persona users ever were.
• Foil:
  • To Labrys. Both were created as test subjects for the project involving Plumes of Dusk for the development of Personas, and both were abused by their superiors, most notably Shuji Ikutsuki himself. However, Labrys was given very brief opportunities to interact with other robots of her kind before being forced to destroy them all, although she eventually found the friends she desperately wanted to have. Sho, besides being a human test subject as opposed to a robot, wasn't even given the luxury of true companionship before being abandoned altogether, openly embraces the carnage he seeks to bring and rejects the idea of friendship, seeing it as a weakness.
  • To Tohru Adachi. Both are psychotic, egocentric masterminds with a desire to bring destruction to all of humanity due to a sense of entitlement for their terrible lives, but while Adachi takes a laid-back approach to everything and is already on his way to a kind of redemption, Sho is an impulsive teenager who still needs to learn his lesson. Adachi even lampshades this during their last fight by calling Sho a "brat throwing a tantrum", the exact same thing the Investigation Team once said he was.
• For Science!: Says he threw Labrys into the TV to get "test data".
• Freudian Excuse: His hate for the world, and rather low belief in bonds all stem from the fact that he was used by Ikutsuki as a test subject, then tossed out when he didn't yield the desired results. Though, how much of an excuse it actually is is something even the characters can't agree on: Yu insists that Sho deserves to be saved and given a second chance, while Mitsuru feels that it's still no excuse for his Omnicidal Maniac behavior.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has an X-shaped scar on his forehead. He also has G-tube and CVC-line scars from his stay at a hospital.
• Glass Cannon: Not to the extent of Elizabeth, but Sho has many mix-ups and is pure rushdown, while his awakening super is one of the most powerful in the game. However, his health is only at 8000 and he has few defensive options.
• Graceful Loser: To an extent in Arena. In contrast to the Malevolent Entity, who makes Labrys rise again after being defeated and has to be forced out by Fuuka, the Eerie Voice accepts that he lost and divulges his motives, before giving back Labrys and vanishing.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: One of his intros has him slicing a Shadow in half.
• Healing Factor: Despite Sho being unable to use a Persona of his own and Minazuki having no known healing abilities other than Life Drain, Sho somehow recovers from being crippled due to brain trauma on his own, even though it's noted Ikutsuki placed him on life support in Inaba precisely to buy time until the Kirijo group can discover a way to heal him (which they never did). He also retains the combat prowess and musculature he developed as a child through several years of coma, to the point the manga adaptation shows not long after Sho awakened he had enough strength to undo his restraints, escape the hospital, and walk through Inaba during winter all the way to Ikutsuki's safehouse. He also recovered from injuries and potential frostbite during said escape without any apparent treatment.
• Hidden Villain: During his initial appearance in Arena, his only interaction with the cast is through hacking Labrys for the Final Boss fight.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: No, not Labrys. In Adachi's story in Ultimax, Sho reveals that he had plans to hijack Hi-no-Kagutsuchi himself by using Adachi's Persona as a medium. He is interrupted by Narukami before he can kill Adachi however.
• Humor Dissonance:invoked He makes really, really bad puns. Even Teddie thinks they're bad.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Seems to be the case, as he is jealous of Persona-users.
• Irony: His attacks are moon themed, his name means All Moons, and his second personality's Persona is the Japanese god of the moon. However, Sho has the Sun Arcana.
• Jerkass: By his own admission, he hates everything and wants to kill them purely because of that.
• Kidnapped for Experimentation: As it turns out, he was a child who was taken in by Ikutsuki in order to do the same experiments subjected to Labrys and Strega. While not a complete success, he was implanted with a Plume of Dusk, giving birth to his Persona-wielding split personality.
• Laughably Evil: While he's a complete psycho, Sho's love for terrible puns makes for some hilarious moments throughout the story.
• Leitmotif: His theme song is "The Joker."
• Loners Are Freaks: He makes it clear that the concept of friends is pointless, so its no surprise he fits this. However, it ends up being Subverted, as Sho can only build bonds by fighting people. His isolation is all done on purpose to deny that part of himself.
• Mad Scientist: Has a complete Lack of Empathy, stating having a heart is meaningless to him, and considers Labrys and everyone else nothing more than guinea pigs to gather data from, and later pawns to fight fight and mess with for his plan. It might be an attempt to emulate his father Ikutsuki.
• Magically Inept Fighter: The only character on the entire roster without a Persona. Rather than letting it slow him down, he compensates by just being that damn strong.
• The Man Behind the Man: He's the one behind Shadow Labrys' rampage and the red fog invading Inaba, along with the Malevolent Entity.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: He's the only Persona-less fighter in the game. Because of this, his "Persona" attacks are extra attacks from Sho himself and a dodge move, and he is not only immune to Persona Break, but also not heavily affected by the Silence status effect (the only thing it disables is his ability to Burst). He is also the only character who lacks an Instant Kill. In fact, he would fit perfectly fine in a BlazBlue game because his gameplay style is more like that game.
• Multi-Slot Character: Shares a roster spot with his split personality MINAZUKI, the difference being that SHO doesn't have access to a Persona, but MINAZUKI does. The true end of Ultimax's story mode reveals that after the true villain's defeat, Sho can't sense Minazuki anymore, and that he now has access to Tsukiyomi as his Persona. It's implied that Minazuki became Tsukiyomi, and that Minazuki was Sho's Shadow. This is followed up with a True Final Boss fight between Yu and Sho, where he uses his physical-based gameplay style while also having access to Tsukiyomi's power, though this variant isn't playable and can only be fought in the game's story mode.
• Moveset Clone: He and his second personality (who is a separate playable character) share the same physical moveset. Without a Persona, SHO focuses on getting close to the opponent and cutting loose, whereas MINAZUKI is a more traditional shotoclone.
• My Name Is ???: During his few matches in Arena, once he's revealed.
• Obviously Evil: A pale, red haired young man with a wild look in his eyes, an X-shaped scar across his face and dual wielding two giant serrated katanas? Little wonder he's the antagonist.
• Omnicidal Maniac: By his own admission, he simply wants to destroy every living thing on the planet purely so he can have the world all to himself.
• Original Generation: Sho is brand new to Ultimax, unlike most of the other fighters who previously debuted in Persona 3 or Persona 4.
• People Puppets: Can electronically take control of Labrys' body and make it do whatever he wants, even from outside of the TV world.
• Playing with Syringes: States he threw Labrys into the TV world and put lives in danger because it was a good opportunity to "gather data".
• Promoted to Playable: He was the Eerie Voice back in Arena.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Adachi outright describes him as a "brat throwing a temper tantrum," and it shows.
• Psychotic Smirk: Smiles gleefully while cutting up his opponents.
• Pungeon Master: Has a penchant for making puns similar to Shuji Ikutsuki from Persona 3. His solo title enforces this.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": Tends to burst out laughing when he crushes an opponent.
• Red Herring: In Ultimax, he sometimes appears to be the supposedly dead Shuji Ikutsuki, only for it to eventually be revealed that he was using illusions, in order to screw with the Shadow Operatives.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Adachi and Minazuki's blue.
• Refusal of the Call: The opening of Ultimax has Sho refusing a contract with the Velvet Room, only for Igor to comment Sho is destined to return one day.
• Remember the New Guy?: Ultimax claims he really was a high school student in Inaba, all through Persona 4, despite you never seeing him anywhere in that game. He's also one of the former orphan test subjects of the Kirijo group, like the Strega members from Persona 3, and saw all of the Investigation Team and Adachi's actions during Persona 4.
• The Resenter: Of Persona-users in general; particularly Yu and Aigis due to their Wild Card abilities.
• The Rival: Somewhat to Labrys, but his real target to assert himself as this towards is Yu. By the end of it all, Yu accepts this position, to boot.
• Save the Villain:
  • Yu and Adachi join forces to rescue Sho from a fully-formed Kagutsuchi in the P4 path.
  • Labrys rescues Sho from a fully-formed Kagutsuchi in the P3 path.
• Sore Loser: Sho's immaturity makes it where anytime he is defeated or ubstaged, he gets angry. Really really angry.
• Shotoclone: Both variants of Sho are shotos in their own way: Sho's fireball is a charge motion and acts more like Sagat's Tiger Shot, but he has an uppercut special in addition to their shared Furious Action; MINAZUKI (the version with Tsukiyomi) has the traditional motion for his fireball (in exchange for it being slower to use) and has a unique super projectile, but the second uppercut becomes little more than a followup to their shared hurricane kick equivalent and his version of their shared uppercut super does less damage than Sho's.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Somebody needs to wash this boy's mouth out with soap because he's worse than Kanji and Yosuke combined. (Hell...er, heck, he's probably just as bad as Ragna the Bloodedge.)
• Split Personality: Appears to have two completely different personalities: a bratty one that can't use a Persona, and a manipulative one that can.
• Split-Personality Merge: Happens to him in the True Ending, indicated by his eyes now glowing blue, calming down considerably, and gaining Tsukiyomi as his Persona.
• Straw Nihilist:
  • He dismisses friendship as a meaningless concept, cutting himself off from others to become powerful. This automatically makes him as much of a Shadow Archetype to Yu and Aigis as the latter two's actual Shadows and Adachi.
  • He also acts like this towards Teddie, calling him out as a Shadow, despite his humanity and bonds, even using his bear puns as a means to bear-ate Teddie.
• Smug Snake: So. Very. Much. Is just the tool of another, and all his plans rely on 'Spam Mind control'. This is part of what pisses Adachi off. He's BORROWING power without actually being a credible threat like he was...and it bites him in the ass.
• Stalker without a Crush: Likely by means of Minazuki's Persona, Sho reveals that he'd been following the Investigation Team from the shadows ever since the first rescue missions, and he liked what he saw. This also, however, led to Hi-no-Kagatsuchi getting ahold of him.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Shares some odd similarities with Ikutsuki from Persona 3. Turns out this is because he's Ikutsuki's "son", as he was one of the orphans Ikutsuki experimented on.
  • Has similar taste in puns.
  • One reading of his last name, Minazuki, is "all moons". Similar to Ikutsuki meaning "many moons".
• The Team Normal: He was originally an ordinary human who lacks a Persona and couldn't even enter the TV world.
• Theme Naming: Most of his moves have the word "moon" in them or are just moon-related.
• Three-Strike Combo: His Houzukizan (Crumbling Moon Slash) series of attacks. In order, Senga (Flash Fang), Shouga (Soaring Fang) and Metsuga (Destroying Fang). Both the latter two can be performed separately in the normal Sho's case.
• Tritagonist: He's The Heavy of both games (though, primarily the second), and he has connections to both the Investigation Team and Shadow Operatives.
• True Final Boss: An SNK Boss version of Sho with Minazuki's Persona serves as the final boss of the true ending path in Ultimax, which can only be unlocked after beating the paths that have the Malevolent Entity as their Final Boss.
• Unwitting Pawn: The Malevolent Entity is just using his human partner to obtain "The one true vessel". True to form, the minute Kagatsuchi has what he needs, he possesses Sho and uses him to make a new body.
• The Voice: You never see what he looks like in Arena, you just hear his washed out voice when he takes control of Labrys.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Lampshaded by Adachi many times. Sho never tries to kill any of the Investigation Team when he encounters them, and he even refuses to kill the captured Shadow Operatives when he easily could of. Given that Sho is a huge Smug Snake, it makes sense why he doesn't.
• Virtue Is Weakness: He dismisses the concept of friendship as meaningless, and openly admits to Adachi that seeing the bonds between the Investigation Team absolutely disgusts him.

Sho MINAZUKI

Sho MINAZUKI (The Scar-Faced Dark Messiah)

Insanity in one hand, tenacity in the other!

^{Click here to see Tsukiyomi}
The Moon God

"Behold. We are about to change the world."

Arcana: Moon
Persona: Tsukiyomi
Main Weapon: Twin Katana
Style: Standard

Voiced by: Kenichi Suzumura (Japanese) / Todd Haberkorn (English)

The "second" Sho, who can use a Persona. In contrast to the other Sho, who is loud and reckless, this one is more calm and calculating. His Persona is Tsukiyomi, the god of the moon.

MINAZUKI was born when Shuji Ikutsuki surgically implanted a Plume of Dusk within Sho in one of his experiments. Since Plumes of Dusk are meant to generate egos in Anti-Shadow Weapons, the result when used on humans was the emergence of secondary personalities. Unlike Sho, MINAZUKI was extremely wary and distrustful towards Ikutsuki, prioritizing Sho's well-being over all else. Deeming his experiment a failure, Ikutsuki attempted to erase MINAZUKI, but this failed, so instead Sho was sedated and abandoned at a hospital in Yasoinaba. With his father figure now gone, Sho turned to MINAZUKI as the only friend he had left, and as such he strived to grant whatever desire his friend wanted. Eventually, the Malevolent Entity approached them and offered to work with them in order to grant Sho's wish: the destruction of the entire human race except himself.

MINAZUKI's Instant Kill is God and Demon Annihilation. He delivers an X-shaped slash with his dual katanas with enough force to knock the opponent into the air. Tsukiyomi then bombards the opponent with dark energy, lifting them higher and higher into the air as the screen is shrouded in darkness. As the outline of the opponent is seen falling, Tsukiyomi appears and delivers a final slash, shattering the darkness and eradicating the opponent.

---

• Anti-Villain: He ultimately just wants to make Sho happy, despite deciding being an Omnicidal Maniac is the way to achieve this end.
• Artificial Human: Minazuki is a personality born from a Plume of Dusk. But unlike Aigis and Labrys, whose minds reside in their own robotic bodies, Minazuki was born as a second soul inside the human Sho.
• Battle Aura: MINAZUKI has a very distinctive light blue aura, which is one of the main things that distinguishes him physically from SHO.
• Casting a Shadow: All of Tsukiyomi's attacks have a dark, shadowy tinge to them, though they aren't the same as the Mudo skills. In Tsukiyomi's appearances as a DLC Persona in Persona 5 onwards, Tsukiyomi specializes in Curse/Eiga skills, with 5 giving him his own signature move, Abyssal Wings.
• Counter-Attack: His Mugen no Kiri (Fog of Fantasy) Awakened SP Skill. Not only does it damage the opponent, but will also darken the screen, which Minazuki can then disappear into, making him invisible unless he attacks, in which case he becomes visible for a short while. In Ultimax 2.0, only the C and SB versions of Fantasy Fog are counters, as the D version activates the attack portion immediately.
• Downloadable Content: Tsukiyomi and his Picaro variant are DLC Personas in the original Persona 5.
• The Dragon: He's forwarding the Malevolent Entity's plan to destroy the world in Ultimax.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Minazuki's only goal is to make a world where Sho can live in peace. Unfortunately, Sho's so screwed up from years of experimentation and torture as a child that Minazuki believes the best means to this end is to kill all of humanity.
• Evil Sounds Deep: MINAZUKI compared to SHO has a much more deeper and sinister voice tone.
  MINAZUKI: Are you prepared to die?
• Final Boss: Serves as the final opponent in arcade mode for the portion of the cast that doesn't face Sho or Elizabeth.
• Flaming Sword: Tsukiyomi's sword appears to be made out of black flames.
• Foil: To Shadow Labrys, who started as completely apathetic to her other self and is an impulsive Blood Knight who will gleefully display her power to demonstrate superiority, even if she's now Labrys' own split personality who fights to defend her, and having the Greek Myth motifs to tie her to the story and cast of Persona 3. By contrast, Minazuki acts to fulfill Sho's wishes and is immediately protective of him and his desires, prefers to act through planning and display power by means of control and mind games, and having a Persona that ties to Persona 4's approach to Japanese mythology.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: His eyes glow bright red whenever he uses the powers he borrowed from the Malevolent Entity.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Arranged for Adachi to be broken out of prison, only for Adachi to turn against him.
• Inconsistent Spelling: The spelling for his Persona, Tsukiyomi. Most of the time in previous forms of Megami Tensei media and other references to the deity himself, it's rendered as "Tsukuyomi". This game is one of the few instances where its reading is completely changed.
• Irony: Minazuki claims his powers come from his and Sho's solitude, but as Narukami points out, his desire to protect Sho means that his power instead comes from his bond with Sho.
• Knight of Cerebus: Whenever he appears the tide turns against the heroes and all comedy stops. He quickly turns the heroes winning streak into a loss and instills shock and fear into the heroes when he first appears.
• Leitmotif: Minazuki's theme is "Blood Red Moon". It's named after a solar phenomenon.
• Life Drain: Can use the classic SMT franchise Energy Drain skills to steal opponents' HP or/and SP.
• Lunacy: His Persona is the Japanese god of the moon.
• Moveset Clone: Much like Labrys and her Shadow Self in P4A, most of Minazuki's physical attacks are tweaked versions of Sho's attacks. However, their Persona attacks and special moves are wildly different.
• Multi-Slot Character: Shares a roster spot with his host, SHO, the difference being that SHO doesn't have access to MINAZUKI's Persona, Tsukiyomi. MINAZUKI shares the same moveset as SHO, with his Persona providing darkness-based moves. The true end of Ultimax's story mode reveals that after the true villain's defeat, Sho can't sense Minazuki anymore, and that he now has access to Tsukiyomi as his Persona. It's implied that Minazuki became Tsukiyomi, and that Minazuki was Sho's Shadow. This is followed up with a True Final Boss fight against Sho, where he uses his physical-based gameplay style while also having access to Tsukiyomi's power, though this variant isn't playable and can only be fought in the game's story mode.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: There is literally no humor involving Minazuki at all in contrast to Sho. Whenever he appears, things get serious right away.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Wants to kill everything in the entire world, other than SHO.
  MINAZUKI: I will destroy this world. Everything will die, and this place will be reborn into a new world... HIS world, where only one life remains!
• Palette Swap: Not really, but another trait that separates SHO and MINAZUKI is that MINAZUKI has a slightly darker default color scheme and completely different alternate colors.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His Persona wears black and red clothes. All his attacks also have red and black auras.
• Red Baron: This personality is called "The Scar-Faced Dark Messiah".
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His eyes glow red when he uses the power he borrowed from the Malevolent Entity.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Sho's red.
• The Rival: to Yu.
• Signature Move: Tsukiyomi's unique skill is Wings of Purgatory/Abyssal Wings. In Ultimax, this was a projectile super move, while in Persona 5, it is a skill that deals curse damage to all targets.
• Sinister Scythe: When Tsukiyomi uses its Instant Kill, its black flame sword become a black flame scythe.
• The Starscream: Along with Sho, he was plotting to use Adachi's persona to prevent Kagatsuchi from winning so Sho could have his wish.
• Superpowered Evil Side: A sadistic and manipulative split personality of Sho's with the power to use a Persona.
• Technicolor Fire: His Persona, Tsukiyomi, can create black fire.
• Three-Strike Combo: His Houzukizan (Crumbling Moon Slash) series of attacks. In order, Senga (Flash Fang), Shouga (Soaring Fang) and Metsuga (Destroying Fang). The latter two have to be followed up from the very former in Minazuki's case however.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In-Universe. In the true ending, Sho is surprised that he cannot feel Minazuki anymore, and that he can now use his Persona Tsukiyomi. This gives heavy implications that Minazuki became Tsukiyomi after Sho accepted himself while Kagutsuchi was using his body, paralleling whenever someone accepts their Shadow. Or, put another way, Minazuki WAS Sho's Shadow.
• Whole Costume Reference: Not him but his Persona Tsukiyomi, who shares more than a few traits with Apollo from Persona 2.

Shuji Ikutsuki

Voiced by: Hideyuki Hori (Japanese) / JB Blanc (English)

The former head of S.E.E.S and member of the Kirijo Group, Ikutsuki was revealed to have had his own agenda during the Dark Hour incident 3 years ago. He died after attempting to sacrifice Mitsuru and the others, and yet his influence isn't entirely gone...

---

• Abusive Parents: Sho considers him his father. Ikutsuki performed horrible experiments on him and ensured he had no chance to make friends while growing up, so this is kind of a given.
• Ascended Extra: He has an arguably bigger role here than in his original appearance, which is impressive considering that he's dead.
• Disney Villain Death: His cause of death is listed in police files as "falling from the roof of Gekkoukan High". Naoto suspects it may have been suicide. It was actually this.
• Generation Xerox: His "son" Sho attempts to summon an Eldritch Abomination and end the world, just like he did.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He's responsible for Sho ending up the way he is, making him indirectly responsible for most of the plot. But he's regulated to this status for the obvious reason of being dead.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Manages to be one despite not making a physical appearance. The fact that he was Evil All Along was one of the biggest twists of Persona 3, but here it's casually stated a few times. As is his death.
• Red Herring: The Eerie Voice shares a lot of his mannerisms, but it turns out to be not him, but his "son".
• Posthumous Character: Despite dying in Persona 3, he still manages to be pretty important in Ultimax.
• Predecessor Villain: To Sho.
• Villainous Legacy: He's been dead for years by the time of this game, but his former actions are a big part of the plot.

Doppelgänger Shadows

Doppelgänger Shadows

"Bring on the ring!"

A group of Evil Knockoffs created in Ultimax to keep the Investigation Team and Shadow Operative members occupied while the Big Bad enacts his Evil Plan.

The only characters that don't have a shadow type are both Shos, Adachi, Elizabeth, Margaret, Marie, and Shadow Labrys (for obvious reasons).

Shadow-Type characters have the same overall build and skill set of the the people they're based on, but they have a few quirks that set them apart. They have 2000 more HP than Normal-Types and can use Awakening-exclusive skills at any time, and they can enter a powered-up state called Shadow Frenzy. However, they can only do 80% of the damage and cannot enter Awakening or use Instant Kills.

---

• Attention Whore: Doppelgänger Rise will change into a skimpy swimsuit for many of her opening and victory poses.
• Ax-Crazy: Some Shadow Types like to take this route when going after the heroes, with Doppelgänger Aigis being a notable example.
• The Baroness: Doppelgänger Mitsuru. Comes with being a reversed Empress.
• Battle Aura: As powerful Shadows in human (or robot or bear) likeness, the doppelgängers have dark blue auras that temporarily disappear when they are hit.
• Bears Are Bad News: The evil Doppelgänger Teddie.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Shadow Junpei◊. Shadow Kanji too, to an extent, who'll occasionally drop out of Camp Gay mode and get dead serious.
• Blood Knight: Doppelgänger Akihiko is incredibly enthusiastic about fighting, and seem to think everyone else must be too, deep down. Doppelgänger Aigis also seems to be an example of this, revealing this to be in her very nature in the first place.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Ken's more bratty personality is exaggerated in his Shadow doppelganger.
• Call-Back: The Doppelgängers' battle intros and victory poses references traits or things that their original counterpart or Shadow Selves did in P3 and P4.
  • Doppelgänger Chie's intro has her sitting atop multiple monochrome versions of herself, just like in Persona 4 after Chie's Shadow goes berserk.
  • Doppelgänger Naoto's intro has her getting up from an operating table and changing one of Shadow Naoto's berserk form's laser blasters into a revolver.
  • Doppelgänger Yukari's intro has her emerging from a steaming shower, just like the real Yukari did in Persona 3 during the male protagonist's route.
  • Doppelgänger Teddie has a callback when using his Nihil Hand super: when the giant Teddie emerges, it's face is more in the berserk form's likeness. He also gains the non-berserk form's distinctive eyes during one of his winposes.
  • Doppelgänger Yu's intro has him transform from a stack of TVs with Yu's face on the screens, which is how Shadow Yu is portrayed in Persona 4: The Animation.
  • Doppelgänger Aigis wears the summer dress Aigis wore when she first appears in Persona 3.
  • Doppelgänger Yukiko will speak into a television microphone in her opening pose, much like Yukiko's real Shadow in Persona 4. She will also transforms into Princess Yukiko in one of her victory poses.
  • Doppelgänger Kanji is pretty much like the original Shadow Kanji and even wears a fundoshi in one of his victory pose.
  • Doppelgänger Ken's victory pose has him transforming into Ken's ten year old self.
  • Doppelgänger Rise's victory pose has her swinging around a pole in a yellow bikini.
  • As a rule of thumb, if an Investigation Team member's Shadow didn't look the same as their other self before going berserk, their doppelgängers can switch to their original appearance if they win a match.
• Camp Gay: Doppelgänger Kanji will change into nothing but a loincloth in one victory pose.
  "Here you go. Enjoy."
• Canon Immigrant: Unlike the other Investigation Team Doppelgangers, Doppelgänger Yu (or rather Shadow Yu) first appears in Persona 4: The Animation instead of the original game.
• Card-Carrying Villain: None of them make any attempt to hide their true nature (except Fake Kanji in the P4 storyline), and start dog-kicking the moment they open their mouths.
• Cerebus Retcon: Mitsuru's threats of "execution" were always Played for Laughs. Doppelgänger Mitsuru's definitely aren't.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action:
  • Shadow Yukiko's victory pose has her change into her Princess dress◊.
  • Doppelgänger Yukari will go from naked in a shower to dressed in her full outfit in one opening pose.
  • Doppelgänger Naoto's victory pose has her change into her over-sized lab coat.
  • Doppelgänger Aigis is seen wearing her other self's iconic pale blue summer dress in her opening pose, only to burn it off after she crushes a black butterfly in her palm.
  • Doppelgänger Kanji's victory pose sees him go from regular outfit to a fundoshi in less than a second.
• Character Catchphrase: "I am a Shadow… the true self…" and "Bring on the ring!"
• Combat Pragmatist: Doppelgänger Ken. He invites the heroes to a one-on-one fight while bringing his version of Koromaru as a handicap and pulls a Wounded Gazelle Gambit that would have succeeded if the real Ken hadn't stepped in.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Doppelgänger Kanji is...very enthusiastic about getting hit.
  "Come at me more!"
• Control Freak: Doppelgänger Chie seems to be going for the "You're no better than the bullies you fight" route this time around.
  "The other person says something you don't like? Simple. Shut them up by force."
• Dark Is Evil: Especially true with Doppelgänger Naoto and Doppelgänger Koromaru, who both know Mudo spells.
• Deadly Doctor: Doppelgänger Naoto dons an over-sized lab coat in one win pose.
• Developer's Foresight: If Doppelgänger Teddie uses Nihil Hand in battle, the larger Teddie will have the original Shadow Teddie's facial damage. Also, he doesn't remove the suit when activating Shadow Frenzy (which normally has the same animation as when using a Burst), but will occasionally do so should he win a match.
• Dissonant Serenity: Doppelgänger Ken is quite calm while he makes those unhinged expressions.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: One of Doppelgänger Rise's entrances shows her very... intimately rubbing her microphone.
• Dominatrix: Doppelgänger Chie will take out a whip and sit on top of a bunch of girls in one opening pose.
• Evil Counterpart: Doppelgänger Aigis is this to Metis, Aigis' repressed emotions during The Answer.
• Evil Knockoff: They're mook Shadows made to look and act like the protagonists' inner Shadows, rather than actual manifestations of negative aspects of each hero's personality. Doppelgänger Labrys is a particularly bad knockoff; she speaks in her other self's accent and uses Ariadne instead of Asterius.
• For the Evulz: They have no interest in being accepted by or fulfilling some hidden desire of their counterparts, like the real Shadow Selves in Persona 4 do. They just want to delay their enemies long enough to let their master succeed his plan.
• Glass Cannon: The doppelgängers have 2000 more health than their regular counterparts and can carry any unused SP into the next round. However, they cannot access Awakening (which decreases the amount of damage characters take), have no instant kills, and lack the "Burst" Combo Breaker move. When a Shadow has 100 SP they can enter "Shadow Frenzy" mode, where all specials and supers cost less, can cancel into each other and create combos worthy of Marvel vs. Capcom.
• The Heartless: They're each an Anthropomorphic Personification of the darkness in all human hearts.
• Kick the Dog: In addition to, well, just about everything they say, there'd a disturbingly literal example. Doppelgänger Ken will call Doppelgänger Koromaru "useless" when withdrawing him.
• Kick Them While They Are Down / Giving Someone the Pointer Finger:
  • Doppelgänger Chie's victory pose has her stomping on her knocked out opponent while pointing at and mocking them.
  • Doppelgänger Akihiko's victory pose has him picking up his opponent and threatening them with an electrified fist before cutting to black.
• Killer Robot: Doppelgänger Aigis and to a relatively lesser extent, Doppelgänger Labrys.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Doppelgänger Yu, apparently.
  "Nanako-o-o-o-o!"
• Laughing Mad: Many will break into insane laughter in their victory poses, with Doppelgänger Aigis' being particularly deranged. She will also laugh in delight once she deals the finishing blow on her opponent.
  • Doppelgänger Yu also features a noteworthy one, but it isn't nearly as terrifying as Doppelgänger Aigis'.
  • Doppelgänger Mitsuru also has a particularly insane one in her victory pose, although it isn't animated like that of Doppelgänger Aigis or Doppelgänger Yu.
  • Doppelgänger Naoto will laugh when using her machine gun.
• Leitmotif: For the Persona 4 cast, fighting their own Shadow triggers I'll Face Myself -Battle-; the Persona 3 cast gets Mass Destruction. Each Shadow-type has their own theme song.
  • For Doppelgänger Aigis, Master of Shadow.
  • For Doppelgänger Akihiko, Crisis.
  • For Doppelgänger Chie, Backside of the TV.
  • For Doppelgänger Junpei, Deep Breath Deep Breath.
  • For Doppelgänger Kanji, Sauna. Muscle Blues for the original vs Shadow theme.
  • For Doppelgänger Ken and Doppelgänger Koromaru, That Which Escaped the Darkness.
  • For Doppelgänger Labrys (with Ariadne), The Almighty
  • For Doppelgänger Mitsuru, Shadow.
  • For Doppelgänger Naoto, Secret Base.
  • For Doppelgänger Teddie, Edge of Madness.
  • For Doppelgänger Rise, Striptease.
  • For Doppelgänger Yosuke, Zone Time.
  • For Doppelgänger Yu, Reach Out To The Truth (First Battle).
  • For Doppelgänger Yukari, Calamity.
  • For Doppelgänger Yukiko, Castle.
• Light Is Not Good: Doppelgänger Ken and Doppelgänger Naoto both know Hama spells.
• Mask of Sanity: The despotic Doppelgänger Yu and the destructive Doppelgänger Aigis' portraits are among the most relatively tame among the Shadow Selves, compared to more insane-looking ones such as Doppelgänger Junpei, Doppelgänger Chie and Doppelgänger Akihiko. This somehow conceals the fact that they are arguably the most horribly twisted and psychotic of the lot. Even Adachi himself thinks that they're too much.
• Mighty Glacier: Doppelgänger Kanji and to an extent Doppelgänger Akihiko, who have the highest and second highest health in the game in their normal forms. Their Shadow forms have an additional 2000 HP, allowing them to sustain more damage as they slowly close in on opponents.
• Mood-Swinger: They're all mentally unstable, and will often switch between angry or emotionless to gleefully psychotic.
• Mythology Gag: Doppelgänger Yu's intro has him transforming from a pile of TVs◊, mirroring Shadow Yu's appearance in Persona 4: The Animation.
• Overnight Age-Up: Inverted by Doppelgänger Ken, who instead ages down to his original's ten-year-old appearance in one match win pose.
• Power Floats: Doppelgänger Akihiko's opening pose has him floating down in a purple force field, à la Magneto.
• Psychotic Smirk: Almost all of them will break into smiles when they try to emotionally or physically hurt a human. The only exceptions are Doppelgänger Teddie, who instead has a murderous scowl; Doppelgänger Naoto, who just has a look of disdain; and Doppelgänger Kanji, who is just fabulous.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": Doppelgänger Naoto tends to laugh when using her machine gun.
• Red Baron: All of them retain their counterparts' fighting titles. In the cases of Doppelgänger Mitsuru, Doppelgänger Aigis and Doppelgänger Rise, they fit them perfectly and disturbingly well.
• Right-Hand Attack Dog: Doppelgänger Koromaru for Doppelgänger Ken.
• Slouch of Villainy: Doppelgänger Mitsuru's victory pose◊.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: As Shadows, they have glowing yellow eyes.
• Troll:
  • Doppelgänger Yosuke says some nasty things that would make Hazama proud.
  • Doppelgänger Kanji starts up a Spot the Imposter situation with the real one despite the fact that the fake shadows are supposed to reveal themselves immediately, just because he thought Kanji was dumb enough to mess with.
• Tragic Villain: Despite how malevolent some of them act, they really are just copies of the people they're based on and act malevolent due to serving the one who created them.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: On the part of Doppelgänger Ken.
  "So you're the idiot with a death wish?"
• Undying Loyalty: They unsurprisingly have this towards their master, Sho Minazuki.
• "Uh-Oh" Eyes: Doppelgänger Rise's eyes are noticeably smaller than those of her original, making her look a little on the crazy side. Doppelgänger Akihiko and Doppelgänger Junpei also qualify.
• We Can Rule Together: Doppelgänger Aigis attempts to convince Labrys to join her master Minazuki and get revenge on those who wronged her in the P4 Route.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Doppelgänger Ken attempts this during the P4 storyline. It would have worked were it not for the real Ken's interference.

The Malevolent Entity (Unmarked Spoilers)

Hi-no-Kagutsuchi

"The heart is frail. Its weaknesses are never fully vanquished. Given the opportunity, it can betray you and return to darkness."

Arcana: ??? / All (Arena), None (Ultimax)
Persona: ??? / All (Arena), Himself (Ultimax)
Main Weapon: ??? / All (Arena), Himself (Ultimax)
Style: ??? / All (Arena), Giant Boss (Ultimax)

Voiced by: Fumihiko Tachiki (Japanese) / Patrick Seitz (English)^note Also uses the voice of whoever he is impersonating.

The Eldritch Abomination Man Behind the Man responsible for all the events in Persona 4: Arena. He was the one who saw to it that Labrys was thrown into the TV world, and is also the true identity of all the apparent shadow selves other than Shadow Labrys. He seeks to gather powerful Shadows in order to create a "true vessel" for himself.

In Ultimax, he takes the form of General Teddie, creating the P-1 Climax in order to distract the heroes while he completes a new plan to make his "true vessel". In the end he is revealed to be Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, the collective will of those who abandon all connections, and strive to live only for themselves, and the Japanese god of fire.

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• Antagonistic Offspring: His actions nearly kill Marie/Izanami, his mother in Japanese Mythology. His father in those myths, Izanagi/Magatsu-Izanagi, also ultimately defeats him. If you're familiar with Japanese Myth, this shouldn't be surprising (he's the reason Izanami died in the first place).
• Anthropomorphic Personification: He's "the collective will of those who abandon all connections, and strive to live only for themselves." He is also described as the dissatisfaction of the people in the P3 Route.
• Big Bad: Was behind Labrys being thrown into the TV world, and spends the majority of the game tormenting the other characters as Doppelgangers of their Shadows. He's also the one Sho is helping to realize his dream of becoming whole and destroying the world in Ultimax.
• The Corrupter: Wants to destroy the psyches of every Persona user in the P-1 Grand Prix so he can take their Shadows for himself.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: He's one to Nyarlathotep from Persona 2, from many aspects. While Nyarlathotep works just about fine everywhere he is in but chooses to voluntarily shapeshift to deceive, Hi-no Kagutsuchi has to shapeshift to interfere directly, since he's pretty much a formless incarnation. While Nyarlathotep's endgame basically involves having humanity destroy themselves over bizarre apocalyptic prophecies granted through collective make-believe, Hi-no Kagutsuchi collects the despair from the Persona users, then the Persona shards to transform himself and himself alone into an incarnation of absolute world destruction. While Nyarlathotep was able to influence the minds of many at once, Hi-no Kagutsuchi can only affect one or two people at a time. Finally, Nyarlathotep is shown to be highly intelligent and requires some cheating from Philemon's side to actually best while Hi-no Kagutsuchi tends to waste perfect chances or make miscalculations.
• Despair Gambit: Plans to destroy the Persona users by making them fight their friends and the innocent, confused Labrys.
• Demonic Possession: Possesses Sho in the finale of Ultimax, to use as a "base" for its "true vessel".
  • That he ultimately failed at creating a stable vessel might have to do with the fact that the aforementioned was actually only his Plan B. His originally intended base was Teddie.
• Doppelgänger: Appears as exact copies of nearly every character in the cast at one time or another.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Malevolent Entity is a shape-shifting monster that can steal your face, invade your thoughts, and bend other Shadows to its will. And that's just its idea of fun.
• Evil Knockoff: Disguises himself as the villainous copy of Teddie, General Teddie, during the P-1 Climax.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Has a deep, booming voice. He's even called the "Echoing Voice" at one point in Ultimax.
• Fighting a Shadow: All the Shadows he appears as are merely temporary forms, and upon his defeat he just laughs and says he'll be back soon.
• Final Boss: In story mode for the Persona 3 cast and Naoto. He's also the final boss in all but the "true end" storyline in Ultimax.
• For the Evulz: Even after his initial plans with Labrys fall through, he keeps tormenting the protagonists to entertain himself.
• Gender Bender: He appears as doppelgangers of several female characters, despite his true form's voice clearly being male.
• Genius Bruiser: He's a destruction god whose goal is to destroy the world all by himself. However, he's also one of the most manipulative Persona villains to date, being capable of breaking people with his words.
• Graceful Loser: To an extent. After being flawlessly exposed by Naoto, he commands Labrys to rise and fight again in a desperate attempt to salvage something from his plans having fallen apart completely. But Fuuka breaks his control over her. He then faces off against Naoto and gets his ass handed to him. But he takes it in stride. Justified in that it's not his real body, so it doesn't really affect him much. Understandably, he does not act this way when finally defeated in Ultimax.
• The Heartless: He was born during the climax of Persona 4, from the minds of people who saw what the fog was doing to Inaba and decided to abandon or sacrifice everyone else to escape.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: He's been the Ring Announcer the entire time.
• Hidden Villain: Every "Shadow" you meet other than Shadow Labrys is actually him, a fact you don't learn until he reveals himself to be the true Big Bad at the end of the game.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Despite Sho's claims in Ultimax of being the main culprit behind the Red Fog incident, the Malevolent Entity turns out to be the true mastermind yet again.
• Humanoid Abomination: Even though he appears in the form of humans, he's a monster that defies the laws of reality.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters:
  Entity: This place, these traps, all of it came from your own minds! What you dread most of all is yourselves!
• I Shall Taunt You: Spends his time taunting people during his boss fight.
• It's All About Me: He is the physical embodiment of "those who abandon all connections, and strive to live only for themselves". Kagutsuchi's main goal is to become the only being in the world, leaving him to do whatever he pleases without the hindrance of others.
• Leitmotif: Burned to Inferno.
• The Man Behind the Man: He's the one who caused Shadow Labrys' rampage in Ultimax and Sho's world ending plan in Ultimax.
• Made of Evil: He is described as being made from people's desire for solitude.
• Master of Disguise: Takes on the forms of nearly everyone's shadow selves throughout the story.^note Teddie, Elizabeth and Labrys are the only exceptions, for various reasons.
• More than Mind Control: For a destruction god he's pretty adept at it, too.
• Mirror Match: Whenever you fight him in Arena, he becomes a perfect copy of the hero you're playing as at the time.
• My Name Is ???: During matches his name is displayed as "???".
• Not Himself: A number of things point to him not actually being any of the protagonist's Shadows. He doesn't wear any of the over-the-top outfits many of the Investigation Team's real Shadows had on, nor use the Berserk forms of the protagonist's Shadows in battle.
• The Omniscient: Knows all about both the Midnight Channel and the defeat of Nyx, and can tell exactly where Fuuka is and what she's saying even while Fuuka's communicating from the real world telepathically.
• Ominous Fog: Kagutsuchi is the red fog that covers Inaba.
• People Puppets: Can take control of the weak willed and make them do whatever he wants. This includes both Labrys and the 5 plane hijackers who provided the cover for her kidnapping.
• Power Copying: Can perfectly mimic the Persona abilities of nearly every other character in the game.
• Playing with Fire: As befitting the god of fire, Kagutsuchi's true form uses a lot of fire-based attacks.
• Psychotic Smirk: His form near the end of the game sports one when he first emerges from the flames.
• Reality Warper: Momentarily takes control of the Midnight Channel to separate all the contestants when they first enter the TV world.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Its true form.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Sho's eyes glow red when the Entity possesses him in Ultimax.
• Red Herring: Looking at the Suspiciously Similar Substitute below, you'd think he's Nyarlathotep from Persona 2: Enternal Punishment. Turns out he's a new character entirely more directly linked to the P4 cast.
• Sadistic Choice: Kill People Puppet Labrys or let her kill you.
• Sequel Hook: At the climax of Arena, he promises the Investigation Team and Shadow Operatives will be seeing him again soon, leading into Ultimax.
• Smug Snake: He's nowhere near as cunning or powerful as he thinks, and constantly fails to exploit perfect chances to kill his dangerous foes when they are paralyzed by his fog or taking credit for the schemes and planning that Minazuki came up with.
• Straw Character: He is essentially a Straw Individualist. He represents those who choose to be alone but portrays it in a very shallow manner by being a Generic Doomsday Villain and claiming all who willingly abandon friendship are wishing for world destruction.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: In every shadow form that he takes.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Shares multiple characteristics with Nyarlathotep, the Big Bad of the Persona series who got Put on a Bus at the end of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
  • His manipulation of Unwitting Pawn Labrys through false memories mirrors Nyarlathotep's manipulation of Jun in Innocent Sin.
  • He's the only shape-shifter in the series other than Nyarlathotep who likes to impersonate other characters.
  • His Teeth-Clenched Teamwork with Minazuki mirrors Nyarlathotep's manipulation of Takahisa Kandori in Persona 1, Maya Okamura in Innocent Sin and Tatsuzou Sudou in Eternal Punishment.
  • The Malevolent Entity's English voice actor in Arena is the same as Nyarlathotep's in the Updated Re-release of Persona 2.
  • His whole plan of trying to force the heroes to succumb to despair so he can destroy the world is more or less similar as Nyarlathotep's whole agenda as well.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Doesn't like feigning cooperation with the Eerie Voice.
• This Cannot Be!: "Impossible... What power is this...!? How can one human's power alone... be enough to best me!?"
• Troll: He's the one who made up the Embarrassing taglines.
• True Final Boss: Storylines with him as the Final Boss are only unlocked after completing at least one involving the Eerie Voice in Arena.
• Villain Teleportation: Just up and leaves after his defeat through this method.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Can turn into any form he likes, including other characters, General Teddie, and even dead people like Shuji Ikutsuki. Justified, since he's just a formless incarnation and he couldn't physically intervene without taking the form of something else.
• We Will Meet Again: Promises the Investigation Team and Shadow Operatives he'll be back soon after being defeated at the end of Arena.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Tries to deceive Naoto by sending out a Shadow impersonating her. The key word is tries. Ends as well as you'd expect.
  • It tried to do this in Yu's arcade mode as well; Yu was not fooled and beat the crap out of it.
• Xanatos Gambit: His plan is a standard Xanatos Gambit. Force heroes to fight. If they do, absorb their power to get his new body. Get new body. Destroy world. If they don't fight, they're trapped and can't stop him. Either way, he wins. His plan is only foiled because Adachi helps the heroes, and the heroes turn out to be strong enough to destroy his body once he's got it.

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