Characters / Persona 4: S-Links and NPCs

Persona 4 Main Character Index
The Investigation Team (Yu Narukami | Naoto Shirogane) | Shadows and Personas | Social Links and NPCs | Antagonists (The Killer)

Social links and NPCs from Persona 4.

Due to the nature of the story, as well as Wiki Policy, several of these characters' entries contain unmarked spoilers regarding major plot twists and reveals in both Persona 4 proper and in the spin-off Persona 4: Dancing All Night. You Have Been Warned.

For tropes relating to characters in Persona 4: Arena, click here.

Social Links

Ryotaro Dojima (Hierophant)

Ryotaro Dojima

I can't give up on this one...

Voice actors: Unshō Ishizuka (Japanese) and JB Blanc (English, credited as John White in The Animation)

Stage actor: Masashi Taniguchi (VisuaLive and VisuaLive Evolution)

The Hierophant Social Link and Yu's uncle, whom he welcomes into his household while his parents are away. He is the detective assigned to investigate the murders. He is able to make some progress on the case, but without understanding the supernatural element to the case his progress is limited. He initially considers Yu a suspect, but cannot bring himself to arrest his nephew. The long hours he spends at his job frequently keep him from taking care of his daughter Nanako. He is the direct superior to Tohru Adachi.

In his Social Link, Dojima gets a lead on the hit-and-run case that killed his wife Chisato, making him stay out even later, to Nanako's distress. Eventually he admits that he has been avoiding his daughter because she reminds him of his late wife, but vows to get over it and spend more time with her daughter. When the lead does not pan out, he decides to let it go. He thanks Yu for helping him remember what was truly important to him and gives him the Coffee Mug, allowing him to fuse Kohryu.

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• Accomplice by Inaction: In the Bad End it's implied that Dojima figures out Yu and the Investigation Team threw Namatame into the television, but decides to look the other way because he feels that was the only way to get justice for Nanako's death.
• Annoying Patient: After being hospitalized, he frequently gets on the doctors' and nurses' nerves by going out to see his daughter. When he collapses after trying to pursue the killer, he gets a tongue-lashing from a nurse, who says that he's risking permanent damage.
• Badass Normal:
  • Despite working more or less alone with only half the clues, he manages to stay relatively close with the Investigation Team on solving the murders. After Nanako's kidnapping he actually manages to discover that the Second Suspect isn't the culprit.
  • During Persona 4: Dancing All Night, he manages to disarm and subdue a desperate fan who was threatening to kill Kanami mere seconds after he entered the room.
• Bad Liar: In the Golden epilogue, when Yu calls him in the phone and he has to cover for the Investigation Team's planned surprise welcome, he is clearly nervous and audibly stumbles over his dialogue. He later admits that he's much better at sniffing out lies than telling them himself.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • After Yu receives a threatening letter from the Killer, Dojima drags him off to the station to interrogate him. You can tell him everything about the TV world at that point, but of course it all sounds like gibberish to him.
  • If you are lovers with Marie at the end of the game, Marie will make a confession to Yu on live TV. Ryotaro however will think it's someone else who has the same name as Yu. If only he knew more about his nephew...
• Coat Over the Shoulder: He never actually seems to wear his jacket, but tends to carry it around draped over his shoulder.
• Cool Uncle: Outside of being concerned with his involvement in the investigation, Dojima is actually pretty lax when it comes to Yu's activities in town. He even gives him his old scooter and says as long as he stays out of trouble, he trusts him with even going outside of the town. Yu's relationship with him is so good that in his appearance as a DLC Optional Boss in Persona 5 Royal, he wields the ultimate Persona of the Hierophant Arcana, Kohryu, which he can only obtain by completing Dojima's Social Link.
• Da Chief: He frequently yells at Adachi for the rookie detective's bumbling.
• Don't Tell Mama: Whenever Yu does something he considers to be foolish, but not reprehensible, he allows him to do so on the condition that he doesn't tell his mom.
• Et Tu, Brute?: When he realises the Killer is someone he knows and trusted, he is angry and upset.
  Dojima: That bastard...
• Even the Guys Want Him: In Persona 4: Dancing All Night, he catches the amorous attentions of Kanami and Nanako's unnamed dance instructor.
• Fair Cop: He's a detective and he's fairly attractive.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Apparently the Foolish to his sister's Responsible when they were younger.
• Former Teen Rebel: Implied. He seems to see his younger self as an idiot, and is highly embarrassed when Adachi brings it up, but looks back on it with a certain fondness.
• Guide Dang It!: After Nanako's kidnapping, you're effectively locked off from his Social Link, no matter how far along in it you are. Leads to some frustrations in most people's first playthroughs. The Golden re-release includes more time to finish his Social Link, although it's not much.
• Hardboiled Detective: Subverted. While he's got the look down, and is quite aggressive and temperamental, Ryotaro is a pretty laid back guy when he's not working and tries as hard as he can to make time for his family.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Adachi. While he's tough on him most of the time, he has no problem going out drinking with him or letting him eat dinner with the rest of his family. It's shown briefly in the game but is more expanded on in spinoffs; but even after everything's revealed about Adachi, Dojima still considers him a friend.
• Idiot Ball: He's presented as competent and clever most of the time, but when he gets angry or upset he tends to act rashly. After being hospitalised following his accident, he tends to leave his room whenever the instinct strikes him, such as when he wants revenge after Nanako dies or he wants to get more information out of Namatame before he's transferred, despite explicit orders from the doctors and nurses to stay in his bed or risk lasting damage, which they call him out on.
• Irony: After Yu plays at the Junes Concert during Golden, Dojima asks him not to enter the idol or music business for fear of his mother coming down on him for the decision. And then Persona 4: Dancing All Night was announced.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Generally a Nice Guy, but tends to be stressed out due to the case and is quite a bit more pushy as a result.
• Last-Name Basis: He typically refers to most people outside his family by their last names, and most people tend to address him the same way- even Yu tends to refer to him as "Dojima-san".
• Locked Out of the Loop: During the Golden Ending, when Marie, as weather reporter Mariko Kusumi, confesses her love for Yu live on air, Dojima thinks it's a big coincidence that there's someone with the same name as Yu, not realizing that Yu and Marie are in a relationship due to him having never met her.
• The Lost Lenore: His wife died in a traffic accident. He's been mourning her ever since, and being unable to catch the driver who killed her is not helping.
• Love Makes You Crazy: His unhealthy obsession with trying to chase down the driver who killed his wife is hurting his relationship with Nanako. After Nanako dies due to Namatame taking her to the TV World, he's caught by hospital staff angrily trying to break into his room, implying that he was going to attack or kill him. Depending on the choices made later, it's heavily implied that he's also willing to overlook the fact that the Investigation Team killed Namatame just to accept that as vengeance for Nanako's now permanent death.
• Married to the Job: The vast amount of time Ryotaro spends at work is because he wants to catch his wife's killer and because he feels he doesn't know how to raise Nanako properly. This is shown to have repercussions in his personal life. Reconstructed in that, as of the extended epilogue in the True Ending, while his job is still very much demanding, Ryotaro now actively tries to set aside time for Nanako, and Nanako fully understands that Ryotaro has a duty (both as a detective and as a father) to protect her and the town. It is also implied that Yu's friends take care for Nanako every now and then for Ryotaro.
• The Mentor: Serves as a mentor of sorts to Yu. He gets injured pretty badly late game, but manages to recover by the end, averting an Obi-Wan Moment.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While impressive, the information he found and revealed to Kanami during the climax of Persona 4: Dancing All Night proves instrumental in allowing the Big Bad of the game to take not only her, but the entire LMB Festival venue (and audience) into the world of the Midnight Stage.
• Old Cop, Young Cop: The gruff, embittered old veteran to the inexperienced Adachi. He's frequently exasperated by his partner's antics precisely because he acts like a rookie despite already having been a cop for a while.
• Only Friend: In Golden, as you progress through Adachi's Social Link, it becomes increasingly apparent that he's surprisingly introverted and antisocial, and Dojima is his only legitimate friend in Inaba. Yu, of course, does eventually befriend him as well.
• Only One Name: Downplayed since he does have a first name, but no-one ever uses it. Despite his first name (Ryotaro) mentioned very briefly at the beginning, everyone refers to him as Dojima-san throughout the game.
• Only Sane Employee: While the Inaba Police Force don't get much screen time, from what we see of them, particularly Adachi, Ryotaro is the only one who knows what he's doing. To be fair to them, the case isn't one normal detective skills could solve, but on the other hand he manages to almost do it any way.
• Outliving One's Offspring: In the Bad Ending, his daughter Nanako predeceases him when she is killed by the Second Suspect.
• Papa Wolf: After Nanako seemingly dies he tries to interrogate (or kill) Namatame, the prime suspect, and has to be restrained by the police. Keep in mind that he’s recovering from a car accident at the time.
• Parental Neglect: Perhaps one of the most sympathetically portrayed versions of the trope. Dojima's wife is recently deceased, and he has a hard time balancing being a single parent along with his career and guilt over not being able to capture his wife's murderer.
• Parental Substitute: Unlike the previous game, where the protagonist didn't really have a parental figure, Ryotaro more or less acts like Yu's parent throughout the game.
• Parents as People: Goes hand-in-hand with the above trope.
• Perma-Stubble: He doesn't seem to ever shave.
• Police Are Useless: Zig-zagged. He starts off as the most informed person in the case, but quickly falls behind the Investigation Team as he (understandably) doesn't consider the supernatural. His instincts are also sharp enough to catch onto Yu being involved in the case, but is unable to properly follow up his suspicions because of Nanako's interventions. He does manage to help Kanami eke out a significant portion of the truth behind the Midnight Stage abductions during Persona 4: Dancing All Night despite being on vacation and thus not having access to his usual level of connections afforded to him by his department.
• Red Herring: If the player chooses him as the killer during the final deduction sequence, the game notes that he actually fits almost all of the check marks on the killer's profile. He could have planted the threatening letter to Yu without arousing suspicion, he would be able to move around Inaba undetected as a local detective, and he would have had access to both Mayumi Yamano (as one of her police bodyguards) and Saki Konishi (during the interrogation about Yamano's death). However, it's then pointed out that he nearly died trying to save Nanako from Namatame, causing Yu to eliminate him as a suspect.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The passionate and driven red oni to Adachi's laid-back easygoing attitude.
• Revenge Before Reason: Subverted in the Normal/True Ending, though he comes dangerously close. After Nanako's death, he tries to kill Namatame before being restrained by the guards assigned to Namatame's room. After calming down, he pieces together the clues himself and realizes Namatame couldn't have been the true killer. He even gets angry at Adachi for sending him off to another hospital before he got a chance to interrogate Namatame personally.
• Say My Name: After the Killer reveals their identity and escapes, he lets out an anguished scream of their name.
• Secret-Keeper: It's implied that he's the only person in Inaba who hasn't entered the TV World to know about its existence and the Investigation Team's actions after being sent to the hospital from a car accident chasing Namatame and pleading to Yu to save Nanako. In the Bad Ending, his last words to Yu suggest that he at least suspects that the Investigation Team murdered Namatame to avenge Nanako.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: When on duty, he's the hard-boiled and hot-tempered Manly Man to Adachi's bumbling Sensitive Guy. It almost reverses when he's off-duty, where he becomes a soft-spoken and dedicated father while Adachi becomes a short-tempered introvert.
• Smoking Is Cool: He is often seen with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, lending to his appearance as a hard-boiled detective. The player can get a costume based on his appearance which features a cigarette to match, but it's not real tobacco.
• Supporting Leader: Dojima lags behind the Investigation Team on the murder case due to their supernatural advantage, but ends up reaching the same conclusions about the case as they do. The largest effect he has on the plot is chasing after Namatame to rescue Nanako, a move that forces Namatame to enter the TV World himself to escape.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: The death of his wife has left him Married to the Job and constantly, fruitlessly searching for leads towards her killer. His Social Link involves helping him see how his obsession is damaging his family and his ability to care for Nanako. Then, in Golden, after he resolves to be a better father, he manages to make a lead on it for the first time in years.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: He comes off as more distant towards Nanako in her Social Link, whereas his Social Link shows things from his perspective and makes his actions seem more understandable.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's quite easy on the eyes despite getting on in years.
• Team Dad: Towards the investigation team. Dojima is stern and tries to keep them out of the investigation, but is also supportive and is perfectly fine helping them throw parties and go on trips.
• That One Case: For him, it's the hit-and-run that killed his wife Chisato. After years of trying to catch the driver without success, he finally makes progress on it in the extended true ending of Golden.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He's actually a pretty good cop, from what the player sees. He just has the misfortune of trying to solve a serial murder/kidnapping case heavily steeped in Urban Fantasy elements with real-life logic.

Nanako Dojima (Justice)

Nanako Dojima

Welcome home, Big Bro!

Voiced by: Akemi Kanda (Japanese) and Karen Strassman (English)

The Justice Social Link, Dojima's daughter and Yu's cousin, though she soon sees Yu as an older brother. Because of her father's workaholic tendencies, she has taken upon herself to run the household while going to school, despite being six years old. She is frequently disappointed when her father does not come home, but Yu's friends eventually become a surrogate family for her.

In her Social Link, Nanako asks Yu questions about the afterlife and her late mother. Yu also helps her come to terms with her father's job, helping her realize that her father truly does love her and that she isn't alone. At the end of her Social Link Nanako gives Yu the Family Picture, allowing him to fuse Sraosha.

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• Adapted Out: Nanako's role in the stage play adaptation was very minimal, to the point of not even having an actress cast in her role. This was presumably because the production team had a difficult time in finding a child actress suitable for her role. She only appeared as a sleeping CGI figure in a couple of scenes.
• Badass Adorable:
  • At one point during the team's vacation, Ryotaro takes her to a game, or shooting range in his case, and is strongly implied that she's really good at it while looking painstakingly adorable.
  • Takes a step further in Persona 4: Dancing All Night where she and Kanami substitutes the missing dancers in the concert and manages to entertain the audience wild. And mind you, the missing dancers are all professionals.
• Break the Cutie: As her Social Link and the game itself progress, she very noticeably starts to break down. It's fortunate for her that Yu and his friends are there for her.
• Call-Back: One point in Adachi's Social Link has her read a reprint of Akinari Kamiki's book for a book report.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Twice in her social link. One time, when Dojima yells at her and Yu for doing some grocery shopping due to not having enough ingredients for dinner, she calls Dojima "stupid" and runs off. On another occasion, when Dojima's hesitant to sign up for parent-teacher meetings, she says that it's fine if he can't come, because he's not her "real" father and runs to the Samegawa riverbank, forcing Yu and Dojima, along with Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko, to find her.
• Character Catchphrase: She will always greet the player with "Welcome home, Big Bro!" whenever they come back home. When she's later kidnapped and put in the hospital, she won't say it anymore.
• Chekhov's Gunman: While she is a major character normally, a minor thing she did makes her essential to uncovering the true final boss: she ran over to the protagonist after the gas station attendant offered him a job and shook his hand. Ryotaro wasn't there at the time, so she's the only person who can confirm that he talked to the attendant on his first day.
• Cheerful Child: Sadly subverted. She has her happy moments, but much of the time her sad, lonely side is more prominent. You will work like hell to fix that. Played straight in the best/canon ending and in Persona 4: Dancing All Night a month later.
• Children Are Innocent: Because of her age and lack of social problems the Investigation Team has, Nanako does not has a Shadow Self when she is in the Midnight Channel.
• Children Do the Housework: She tends to do quite a few chores at home while her single father is out doing police work, such as cooking breakfast (though mainly just eggs and toast) and the laundry.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: If her Social Link is maxed out, she decides that she wants to marry Yu when she grows up. Depending on whether or not Dojima's Social Link is also maxed, he'll either humor her or become worried.
• Continuity Cameo: She appears in Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight in her Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth appearance as a head accessory.
• Cosplay: In the anime, she dresses up as the "Magical Detective Loveline" while investigating why Yu has been acting really weird lately and keeps coming home late. Despite it apparently being comprised of standard merchandise, she ends up looking almost identical to the titular character, which ends up confusing Yuuta.
• The Cutie: So mindbogglingly cute. Admit it, you want a little sister just like her!
  Welcome home, Big Bro!
• A Day in the Limelight: Episode 13 of the anime focuses on her and her attempts to find out where Yu keeps disappearing to during the summer.
• Death of a Child: She is killed as a result of spending too much time in the TV world after being kidnapped by Namatame. If you kill Namatame in revenge, she stays dead; if you don't, she comes back.
• Delicate and Sickly: Although it's never stated outright that she has health problems, she seems to have a recurring stomach problem that she has medication for and sometimes has a sudden fever. It all gets much, much worse after she's kidnapped, with her prolonged exposure to the Midnight Channel resulting in her growing sicker to the point of being admitted to hospital for a good portion of November and most of December, and eventually dying, albeit temporarily outside of the bad ending.
• Determinator: In a matter of speaking: her miraculous recovery in the good ending largely happens thanks to her great will to live, and she's often noted to be a fighter in that regard.
• Does Not Like Spam: She isn't particularly fond of spicy food. When she taste-tests the older girls' omelets, it's clear that she's only praising them to be nice, but when she tastes Rise's, you can hear her struggling to force down the omelet.
• Everyone's Baby Sister: While only Yu is her actual relative, the rest of the Investigation Team also adore her and are highly protective of her. The group's collective Darkest Hour is when Nanako gets kidnapped and seemingly dies after being rescued from the second suspect; the team is all so furious at Namatame that they seriously consider tossing him into the TV world to die. When she makes a recovery, Kanji even remarks that he's as relieved as if she was his actual family.
• Generation Xerox: Her father mentions how much she looks like her mother, and in the extended ending in Golden it seems that she's begun to pick up some of her mother's hobbies, notably playing the piano.
• Girlish Pigtails: At least until her epilogue in Golden.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Being a kind-hearted and innocent child, she doesn't understand why people do bad things. The answer that she most approves of is saying that you don't know, at which point Nanako concludes that it makes sense, since you're not a bad person.
• Guide Dang It!: Her Social Link can no longer be advanced after she's kidnapped, so max it while you have the chance. You do have some extra time once Nanako returns home in Golden during January/February, though.
• Hope Spot:
  • Played for Laughs when she's rattling off what the "big girls" told her to put in her homemade chocolate for the protagonist for Valentines Day. She starts with Chie's suggestions, which are comparably the least lethal as it's only bacon and iced coffee, which are found in some conventional servings, but afterwards, things go downhill rapidly following what Yukiko and Rise suggested to the point where Yu is knocked unconscious from apparent food poisoning from it.
  • Played for Drama when she's in the hospital after being rescued. Her health slowly but surely improves at first, but her condition takes a nosedive on December 3rd, to the point that she flatlines. Whether she miraculously recovers or stays dead depends on the ending. The Neutral Ending, in particular, deserves mention. After Nanako came back to life, they hoped that she could recover... only for her to not to, still in a coma months later, but at least alive. Dojima laments how she can't say goodbye because of her coma.
• Instant Expert: In Dancing All Night, she immediately picked up a dance routine that Kanami couldn't get right for two weeks and a half, and Nanako immediately rises to stardom with the agency, much to her delight.
• Kid Detective: Becomes one as she imitates her favorite anime character and tries to finds out about Yu's movement in the anime, which happens to be "Magical Witch Detective" of all things. She can also provide incidental help for Naoto's search for "The Phantom Thief" in Naoto's social link.
• Kill the Cutie: In the worst endings.
• Lethal Chef: An entirely Justified example since she’s a very young child taking advice from other horrible cooks. On Valentine's Day in Golden, Nanako gives Yu some chocolate she made herself... after receiving pointers from Chie, Yukiko, and Rise, and finishing it before Naoto could help. Chie told Nanako to add iced coffee for flavor, and bacon, because everybody loves bacon, right? Rise said the chocolate needs to assert itself by being either really sweet or really spicy, so Nanako, thinking Yu a grown up, made it bitter by adding bell peppers and wheatgrass juice. Thinking that "sour chocolate" would really assert itself, Nanako also added vinegar and ponzu sauce. Finally, Yukiko told Nanako to add in fish to give the chocolate "depth". The end product looks similar to the Slime persona, and prompts a worse reaction than Mystery Food X. Nanako isn't a lethal chef normally, Chie, Yukiko, and Rise were being lethal chefs by proxy. Her reaction to Yu's reaction is just pitiful. She can make eggs "sunny side up" just fine though.
• Letting Her Hair Down: In the True Ending, she's let her hair grow out, to the point that her locks are flowing atop her shoulders.
• Meaningful Background Event: She can just be barely seen looking at Yu talking to the gas station attendant early on, which comes up much, much later.
• Missing Mom: Nanako's mother Chisato died in a hit and run accident prior to the events of the game, forcing her to become the mature little girl she is in present day.
• Morality Chain: She can be viewed as one of these to her father, the whole Investigation Team, and the Player. When she apparently dies, most of the Investigation Team want to push Namatame into the TV World knowing full well it may kill him.
• Morality Pet: To Adachi, especially in Golden: The Animation where he's noticeably distressed by her condition.
• Mondegreen Gag: During Adachi's Social Link in Golden, she mispronounces "stew" as "shoe". He helps her pronounce it correctly.
• Nice Girl: She's extremely cheerful and sweethearted, loving to help people when she can like spending a great deal of the summer festival running around helping Yu's friends and acquaintances.
• Only Mostly Dead: You're told she's dead one way or the other, in order to make killing Namatame seem justified. If you choose not to she will suddenly come back to life.
• Precocious Crush: She develops one on Yu over the course of the game.
• Promoted to Playable: Nanako, a character who was a non-playable social link, becomes a playable character in Persona 4: Dancing All Night.
• Significant Birth Date: According to the artbook, Nanako's birthday is on October 4th. In Persona 3, this was the date Shinjiro killed Ken's mother and the date of his own death two years later.
• Stepford Smiler: She puts on a brave face but she's actually very lonely, what with her mother dead and her dad always at work. She very quickly bonds with the MC. Lampshaded during her dungeon by Kanji, who describes her as "A little kid... telling herself she's not lonely so she doesn't fall apart..." Thankfully, she got better in the best ending and in Persona 4: Dancing All Night chronologically set right after.
• The Stoic: She's typically perky, but whenever she has to come to terms with grievances, she tends to express them in an emotionless, hardened fashion.
• Tagalong Kid: Doesn't do anything, but the entire party cares deeply about her (note that everyone has a point in their own Social Links where Nanako can make an appearance). She gives Yu special accessories if he scores highest in his class on exams.
• Third-Person Person: In the Japanese versions of the game, given that she's a young child.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: In the ending in which the team throws Namatame into the television, Nanako stays dead.
• Trademark Favorite Food: She likes meals made from eggs, omelettes in particular.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Golden reveals in the good ending that she can't remember much of the kidnapping or the TV world, only that Yu and his friends had saved her from something. Naoto voices the opinion that it's probably for the best.
• Uncertain Doom: Unless the player completely loses it and throws Namatame in the TV, the bad endings see Nanako stay hospitalized indefinitely, with no word as to whether or not she eventually recovered.
• Video Game Caring Potential: All Social Links have this, but Nanako takes the cake. In fact, considering what happens to her and what you can do to the one responsible, the game makers almost certainly did it on purpose.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Nanako is pretty mature for her age, much to the surprise of the Investigation Team, with Chie noting that Nanako makes her feel like the little kid in the conversation. There's also a bit of a sad element to it, as Dojima leaving Nanako alone so often has clearly forced the girl to grow up a bit too fast to take care of herself.

Tohru Adachi (Jester, Golden only)

Tohru Adachi

Relax, kids, the police are on the job.

Voice actors: Mitsuaki Madono (Japanese) and Johnny Yong Bosch (English)

Stage actor: Masami Ito (VisuaLive and VisuaLive Evolution)

Originally a side character, Adachi became a Social Link in Persona 4: Golden, representing the Jester Arcana.

Adachi is a bumbling detective who was transferred to Inaba due to an unknown incident (presumably one of his many screw-ups). One of the main authorities on the murder cases along with Dojima, he has a habit of divulging critical information to the Investigation Team, making him a useful ally.

His Social Link focuses on his laziness and dissatisfaction with countryside police work, and is unique in that some events take place in the day (Rank 1, 2 and 6) and others take place at night (Rank 3, 4 and 5). If sufficiently ranked up by a certain point, he gains a slightly larger role in the main story, with a few added scenes of him offering support and encouragement to Yu, and the rest of his rank-up events happen as story events. Depending on the player's choices, at the end of Adachi's Social Link Yu'll be given either Adachi's Number or Adachi's Letter, both of which allow him to fuse Magatsu-Izanagi.

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• Ascended Extra: Goes from a supporting NPC in the original game to an outright Social Link in Golden.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While Adachi generally comes across as a Nice Guy during his screentime in the main story, his social link shows that he can be surprisingly harsh when it comes to people who get on his nerves, and that he is as a result actually quite socially isolated outside of his friendship with Dojima.
• Breakout Character: Due to the popularity of the character, he became a full-on Social Link in the remake.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Deconstructed. While Adachi is actually pretty intelligent, the lack of effort he puts into his job makes him an ineffective laughingstock in the police force. It's shown late in the game that when he does focus on his job, he can be pretty effective, and he starts getting more respect from his coworkers and the Investigation Team alike.
• Bumbling Sidekick: He even called himself Dojima's "slave" at one point.
• But Now I Must Go: In two endings of Golden, he ends up leaving Inaba after the game's events. In one of these two endings, it's noted Dojima still remains in contact with him and visits him periodically. He does, however, send a letter that's very important for the True Ending.
• Butt-Monkey: He's always being shouted at by Dojima either for accidentally revealing too much about the investigation to the team, or screwing up in some case.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Usually more or less a burden on Dojima's investigation who only benefits the main team by being bad at his job, Adachi occasionally shows moments of genuine competence, generally when things get more serious. The few times he actually gets to use his gun show that he's a crack shot.
• The Ditz: He's generally presented as someone who can't seem to do anything right.
• Foil: To Yu. Both of them are outsiders to Inaba who treat the Dojimas like a second family, but while Yu is proactive, works hard to develop bonds with others and is very competent, Adachi is lazy, tends to avoid relationships and is incredibly bumbling. To further emphasize this, his arcana in Golden, The Jester, is very similar to Yu's, The Fool, but emphasizes living idly rather than having the drive to charge blindly into the unknown. They're even voiced by the same guy in the English version, and the Persona unlocked by maxing his Social Link is an alternate version of Izanagi.
• Friend on the Force: Helps out the investigation team at several points, much to Dojima's chagrin.
• Genius Ditz: He may come off as clueless and bumbling, but when push comes to shove, he's a skilled detective with a surprisingly good head on his shoulders.
• Guide Dang It!: A relatively minor one, but Adachi's Social Link is only available on specific days and certain stages can only be progressed at either day or night. If he's available on a given day, but it isn't the right time (for example, trying to access a night-time event at day or a daytime event at night), he'll tell Yu that he's busy.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: While Dojima's tough on him most of the time, he also has no problem treating him like a member of the family. In return, Adachi holds Undying Loyalty towards Dojima.
• Hidden Depths:
  • His character design notes mention that he was previously an elite detective before being transferred to Inaba. Let that sink in for a moment.
  • To his credit, his Social Links provides better insight on his character and shows him to simply be too unmotivated by Small Town Boredom to make any real effort in his work.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: When he and the Investigation Team catch a man trying to spy on Rise he gets to utter something he's been waiting to say.
  "We'll hear your story down at the station...Ohh, how I've waited to use that line!"
• Innocently Insensitive: In the anime, Adachi voices the police's suspicions regarding Yukiko's disappearance at the station — that she may have been involved in the murders — in front of her clearly worried friend. To say that neither Chie nor Dojima took this well would be an understatement.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Adachi's only in his mid-twenties but is good friends with the forty-one-year-old Dojima. He also has one to a lesser extent with Yu, who turns eighteen over the course of the game.
• Jaded Washout: Throughout his Social Link in Golden, he laments how life didn't turn out as well for him as he once imagined it would. At one time, he was at the top of his graduating class at the police academy, but was instead sent to a small town of Inaba where he struggles to adapt to life from the city, gets no respect from his colleagues and constantly has to deal with irrelevant cases.
• Let's Get Dangerous!:
  • He openly tries to taunt whoever might've wanted to kidnap Rise when he's helping the Investigation Team try (but fail) to keep her safe and arrests a creepy stalker who ended up being unrelated to the case.
  • After Dojima's accident he becomes noticeably more focused and competent.
• Manchild: More or less still acts like a teenager, despite being in his twenties.
• Mauve Shirt: In the original Persona 4. He's a pretty prominent character, but he doesn't have a Social Link and thus never rises beyond being Dojima's sidekick. Averted in Golden, where he now has one under the Jester Arcana.
• Nice Guy: While he's a pretty terrible cop, Adachi's a very laid back and nice guy who keeps cool when Dojima loses it. He seems to get along pretty much instantly with both Yu and Nanako. That being said, his Social Link implies that he's not that nice if you haven't befriended him.
• Noodle Incident: What got him transferred to Inaba. He says it was just a minor slip up his superiors overreacted to, but knowing him...
• No-Respect Guy: Dojima orders him around like a chore boy, and the Investigation Team don't treat him much better.
• Old Cop, Young Cop: He's the inexperienced and cheerful cop to Dojima's hard-boiled veteran, though he is suggested to have been a cop for a decent amount of time before getting stationed in Inaba.
• Older Than They Look: Hearing his voice, seeing his attitude, his face, and his vomiting first appearance, it's easy to assume Adachi is a new rookie on the force straight out of school. He's 27.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Generally only around for laughs, and even when he isn't he's still quite goofy. Considering the fact that his Social Link Arcana in Golden is The Jester, it does make sense.
• Police Are Useless: Zig-zagged. On the one hand, his incompetence prevents him from ever accomplishing anything productive in the case, but on the other, it allows for him to accidentally provide useful information for the Investigation Team to work with.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He usually acts like this whenever he shows up, trying to help the Investigation Team whenever he can, such as backing them up upon suspicion that Rise will get kidnapped.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The lazy and passive blue oni to Dojima.
• Ridiculously Average Guy: Appearance-wise, he's pretty nondescript. Personality-wise he's pretty average as well, though he does have a few quirks.
• Saying Too Much: Has a habit of accidentally divulging information on the investigation, much to Dojima's chagrin. This is part of what makes him such a valuable asset to the Investigation Team, as his idle chatter tends to point them towards new leads.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: When on duty, he's the bumbling, spineless Sensitive Guy to Dojima's hard-boiled Manly Man. It almost reverses when off duty, where he tends to treat others with scorn and shies away from close relationships while Dojima serves as a Cool Uncle.
• The Slacker: Adachi's not quite as dumb as he initially seems, just too lazy to do his work properly.
• Sloth: Big-time. His Social Links show him as always finding ways to waste time, he doesn't cook because he can't be bothered to learn and he mentions his ideal girlfriend would be someone who did all the cooking and cleaning for him. For all his dissatisfaction with his life, he doesn't really do much to try and actually do something about it.
• Small Town Boredom: He often complains about how life in Inaba's fairly boring, such as getting assignments to find a lost cat and play peacemaker in a domestic dispute.
• Smarter Than You Look: It's quite telling that in his first scene Dojima tells him to stop acting like a rookie. His Social Link makes it clear that he has more of a problem with lack of motivation than genuine incompetence.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Cabbage, which is from a line of his in the original game - the anime runs with it. He does mention that he actually doesn't like them that much, though, and only bought them because they were on sale.
• Vomiting Cop: He's first seen running away from the crime scene to vomit when Yu, Chie, and Yukiko were on the way home.

Margaret (Empress)

Margaret

Welcome to the Velvet Room.

Voice actors: Sayaka Ohara (Japanese), Michelle Ann Dunphy (English), and Marisha Ray (English, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Persona Q)

Stage actor: Arisa Nakajima (VisuaLive Evolution)

The Empress Social Link, Igor's new beautiful assistant and older sister of Elizabeth and Theodore. She takes over her younger siblings' role of tasking Yu to create certain Persona through fusion. She takes a clear interest in Yu and his world, and upon completion of the Social Link gives him the Spiral Brooch, allowing him to fuse Isis.

Upon completion of her S.Link, Yu can challenge her to a fight, but only if you're on New Game Plus.

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• Adaptation Expansion: Gets much more spotlight in the anime and Persona Q due to the death of Igor's Japanese voice actor. However, to the surprise of some, she did not take Igor's place for Persona 5 and does not appear in the game.
• Always Wanted to Say That: She'll comment that she's always wanted to say "Welcome to the Velvet Room" when Igor is away and she gets to say it.
• Ambiguously Human: Margaret and her siblings are referred to as "residents" of the Velvet Room, which is in some ways linked to the human unconscious where Shadows live. They all wield Personas, but they don't seem to be their Personas since they simply take them out of the compendium. Like Shadows, they all have golden eyes. Except she apparently is not a Shadow, given her comments about Marie.
• Badass Bookworm: Like the other Velvet Room attendants, she has in-depth knowledge of each arcana and carries around the Persona Compendium. She is also one of the most difficult boss fights in the series.
• Balance Buff: Notably, from P4 to Golden to P3 Portable, she got significant buffs in each to make her boss fight harder.
  • In the original P4 she could attack only once per turn, in Golden, it's twice per turn like Elizabeth before her.
  • In P3 Portable she can't be knocked down anymore, so All-Out-Attacks can't be used on her, which prevents quick victories like these. She also has a few unwritten rules that can make her drop a 9999 damage Megidolaon (Needing to do 5000 damage on her every 10 turns, using Infinity, using Armageddon without finishing her off), though they aren't as strict as Elizabeth's/Theodore's.
• Big Sister Instinct: She is very protective of Theodore, even more so of Elizabeth. This also extends to Marie, albeit she acts more like a mother towards her than an older sister. It also presumably extends to Lavenza, though the sole interaction seen between them so far (a brief moment in Lavenza's trailer for Dancing Star Night) is much more gentle than her other siblings. Likely due to the fact that Lavenza's the youngest of them.
  • The fact that the worst Caroline gets in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth for causing Justine to knock her over is a Death Glare, it's fair to say this trope is very much in play with her youngest siblings.
• Blade Spam: She is fully willing to make use of Yoshitsune's eight-hit Hassou Tobi during her fight after using Power Charge to make each hit feel like a freight train, mimicking one of the most popular late-game strategies in the series.
• Blood Knight: In your optional duel with her, she says that this is the first time she's felt this alive in a long, long time.
• Blue Is Heroic: Like the other Velvet Room attendants, Margaret wears nothing but blue and black and is the Big Good's loyal assistant.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: At times she's visited while Igor is out, allowing her to give the customary "Welcome to the Velvet Room."
• Closet Geek: She is apparently a fan of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, as she forces the Investigation Team in the P3 route of Q to pose like the characters from said manga. Her character artwork in Persona 4: Dancing All Night even has her posing like Joseph Joestar.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Interestingly, she asks this question when she herself is the Cthulhu in question.
• The Dreaded: While she appears to be soft-spoken and polite, getting her angry is a fatal mistake. A running gag in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is that everyone in the Investigation Team are frightened of her to the point of reluctantly performing a Super Sentai-expy pose when rescuing S.E.E.S. in the P3 Route. She also flashes an epic Death Glare when Theodore accidentally drops a water balloon on her. Even Caroline and Justine are afraid of her scolding them.
• The Gadfly:
  • The gentle, friendly sort. She sets up a fortune-teller booth at a school fair (it's never directly stated it's her, but the coloring and style of the booth is the same as the Velvet Room and the game says her voice is familiar) and makes snarky comments about Yu's love-life to whichever girl he's with. Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth and Persona 4: The Animation pretty much confirm it.
  • In Golden and the Q duology, the Protagonists will occasionally find one of Marie's poems lying on the floor of the Velvet Room, which always ends with Marie going into full-on Tsundere mode. It becomes increasingly difficult for Margaret to hide her amusement after these events and after a while she even starts commenting on the contents when Marie keeps failing to realize why her poems are out in the open.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: In the anime, she pulls one on Yu during his epic Heroic BSoD in episode 26.
• Helping Would Be Kill Stealing: Despite having enough power to take on nearly any enemy in the series, Margaret and the other Velvet Room attendants believe that it isn't their place to directly intervene in the affairs of humans as their fates should be up to the humans themselves to decide.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: She casually sets up a fortune teller's booth at the school culture festival and has apparently garnered a few patrons including Nanako, none of whom are aware of her actual powers.
• Humanoid Abomination: Exactly what she is is unknown: She, evidently, isn't human, but, as mentioned at Ambiguously Human, she also is not a Shadow. Margaret also says that all of the Velvet Room attendants preside over power itself, which they prove through their infamously difficult Superboss battles.
• Intrigued by Humanity: Her reason for succeeding Elizabeth in the Velvet Room.
• I Will Find You: After her Superboss fight, she promises Yu that, should the worst happen and his soul ends up isolated, she will do the same for him as Elizabeth is doing for the protagonist of Persona 3.
• Light 'em Up: Of all the Personas Margaret wields, she's most closely associated with Helel, the angelic version of Lucifer, and his Morning Star attack is her Instant Kill Attack in Persona 4: Arena Ultimax.
• Master of All: As seen in her Superboss fight, she packs all of the most powerful magical attacks in the game as well as several of the game's strongest physical attacks, including Yoshitsune's infamous Hassou Tobi.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Well Social Link in this case. Her Social Link is unlike anyone else's in the game. While with everyone else you have to spend your time with them and make the right choices, with Margaret all you have to do is bring a fused Persona with a specific skill. Because she doesn't use up your time, you can even go from rank 1 to 10 all in the same day, as long as you have the Personas with the right skills, while still being able to use your time for something else.
• Mundane Utility: She branches off part of the Velvet Room to create an elaborate but cheap-looking fortune teller's booth at the school culture festival. Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth had this backfire on her.
• Mystical White Hair: Like her siblings, Margaret possesses snow-white hair, which emphasizes her otherworldly appearance along with her Supernatural Gold Eyes. As her Superboss fights show, she is also a very powerful Persona user and arguably the most powerful in the series short of the protagonists.
• Not So Above It All:
  • She seems very composed and collected, but it's implied she watches StarScandalz and during her S.Link she makes several comments about looking for a Persona that can defeat Igor in the Gag Nose department. In Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, on the P3 Route, the Investigation Squad shows up during the first boss battle and does a "Super Sentai" Stance. It's subsequently revealed that Margaret made them do that, and even forced them to practice it several times beforehand. The anime also notes that she loves Elizabeth's "Long Nose" song, much to Igor's dismay.
  • Also in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, when she is the one fusing and causes a Fusion Accident, it will land in her hair. Nonplussed, she then takes the card, crushes it (while sporting an angry look on her face), and then presents the new fusion to the player.
  • She and her siblings also become addicted to hot dogs in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, hoarding them by the truckload in their rooms and accusing the others of stealing when their supply decreases.
• Power Floats: She does this during her Superboss fights. Immediately lampshaded by Rise.
  Rise: ...What the!? She's floating!?
• Pungeon Master: She often does this, particularly if you ask about the Persona she's requesting, whereupon she'll make a pun about the Arcana involved.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Not exactly in terms of leadership, but with her being the oldest of the Velvet Siblings, she's arguably the most powerful of them all. Not even Elizabeth dares cross paths with Margaret, preferring to mess with Theodore instead. When Justine is sent spinning into Margaret during a fusion accident in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, bowling the eldest Velvet sibling over, Caroline's response to Margaret's (understandably) furious Death Glare is to snap to attention. Even the twins are hesitant to cross her.
• Ship Tease: Margaret will kiss Yu at the end of the game if her Social Link is completed.
• Statuesque Stunner: Being the eldest of the Velvet Attendants, and Yosuke's reaction to her in Golden, this is a given.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: She has a tendency to make truly awful jokes with a completely straight face and is disappointed that Yu doesn't laugh.
• Sugar-and-Ice Girl: Subverted. She comes off this way in the beginning, but actually shows a bit of a flirty side as you complete her requests.
• Superboss: All the various final bosses, including the real one, are not actually that difficult. Margaret, however, will tear you apart if you try her optional boss fight if you're only as powerful as you need to be to take on those schmucks. Accessing her fight is also not straightforward and requires numerous conditions to be met.
  • Persona 4 and Golden: Finishing her social link and being on New Game Plus allows you to face her at the end of Heaven near the game's end.^note In the original game, this also requires you to have gotten the true ending on your previous cycle; however, Golden allows you to fight her on New Game Plus regardless of the ending reached on the previous cycle. She's a similar fight to Elizabeth/Theodore in Persona 3 but is tuned for a full party, is less gimmicky and generally more difficult, though you do have more flexibility in your Personas to make up for it.
  • Persona 3 Portable: She's ported back into a bonus section as one of the most difficult fights in the game. Once again, she's set up to be fought against a full party and having multiple phases, some of which can wipe even the strongest party if she gets a few criticals off.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: It's not clear what she is, but it's probably not a human and definitely not a Shadow. The closest we get is that she refers to Marie as though they are similar types of beings (which would imply she is a goddess), and describes herself as "one who rules over power".
• Super-Strength: In the Bonus Dungeon of Golden, she suddenly grabs Chie's hand when she reaches for the TV while the other party members try to pry her off when all of them get pulled inside the TV.
  • New Cinema Labyrinth sees her lift and move Justine by her collar with one arm when the twins botch a Persona fusion.
• Throw the Book at Them: She always carries a large book with her, the Persona Compendium, which she turns into a weapon in her boss battle and in Ultimax.
• Time-Limit Boss: If the player doesn't defeat her in 50 turns (essentially 25 in Golden, since she can act twice), she will use a special form of Megidolaon without Mind Charge that does 9,999 damage, instantly killing the party. It's possible to survive the attack with Enduring Soul or other moves, but she will eventually use it again.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In the anime, she breaks into Izanami's Lotus-Eater Machine after Yu locked himself in it as a "Groundhog Day" Loop so he doesn't have to leave his friends behind to give him a Dope Slap and fight him with the compendium.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Zig-zagged. Margaret is firm in her belief that Velvet Room attendants must not directly interfere in the affairs and fate of humans, but genuinely believes that the heroes can change the future. However, she herself believes that she must not change fate. So when given the opportunity to talk down Elizabeth in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Margaret ultimately drops the subject and says that it's not her place to do so.

Marie (Aeon, Golden only)

Marie

I don't remember anything.

Voiced by: Kana Hanazawa (Japanese) and Eden Riegel (English)

A new character and Velvet Room resident introduced in Persona 4: Golden, and the Aeon (XX) Social Link.

Marie is a cute and mysterious fashionista that Yu meets at the train station upon his arrival in Inaba. She later appears as an assistant within the Velvet Room, where it's revealed that she is suffering from amnesia. She serves as something of a protege to Margaret, managing Yu's skill cards and the game's online features. She also enjoys writing poetry, usually about separations, existentialism or nature.

Her Social Link focuses on her unfamiliarity with human society, as well as her amnesia. Throughout the link, she encounters and befriends the various members of the Investigation Team, and they in turn help her search for clues to her past. At the end of her Social Link, she decides to stop dwelling on her lost memories and instead make new ones with her friends. She then gives Yu her Bamboo Comb, the only link she has to her past, which allows him to fuse Kaguya.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: Her eye color in bounces between gray-blue and bright green, depending on the depiction. They're gray-blue in Golden, on her gameplay model in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, and in her storyline animations in Arena Ultimax; they're bright green on her gameplay model in Arena Ultimax, in the anime cutscenes in Persona Q, and in Persona 4: The Golden Animation.
• Adapted Out: While the manga adaptation later includes elements from Golden, such as the Junes concert and Adachi's Social Link, Marie is completely absent.
• Alternate Self: Her role is to manage SOS Requests sent and fulfilled by Yu between several different versions of him in different worlds. She continues this in the Q series via Streetpass.
• Amicable Exes: Is mythologically Izanagi's ex-wife. If she and Yu simply remain friends and she survives the events, their relationship technically becomes this.
• Ambiguously Human: Much like the other residents of the Velvet room, though even they don't know much about her.
• Angrish: When angry she runs words together rapidly, saying stuff like "stupidjerkfaceIhateyou."
• Ascended Meme: If Yu tells her that steak is short for "beefsteak", she says that dropping the word "beef" wouldn't make any sense afterwards and calls it "fsteak" instead.
• Badass Boast: As Mariko, she doesn't claim to be predicting the weather, she outright states that she's the one making the weather. The newscaster never picks up on it.
• Berserk Button: Her poems being read, which is a Running Gag in Golden, Q and Q2. Sometimes the Protagonists will occasionally find one of her poems lying on the floor of the Velvet Room, which always ends with Marie going into full-on Tsundere mode.
• Broken Bird: She's pretty messed up, once you learn her backstory.
• Brutal Honesty: The side effect of having No Social Skills.
• Canon Immigrant: Despite originally being introduced in Golden, she shows up as a supporting character in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, as well as a playable fighter in Arena Ultimax.
• Continuity Cameo: She appears in Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight in her Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth appearance as a head accessory.
• Deuteragonist: Persona 4: The Golden Animation is largely centered around her, and she even shares cover space with Yu.
• Developer's Foresight: During the fourth stage of her Social Link, she refers to Chie and Yukiko as "Green and Red" because of their trademark favorite colors. If you happen to do this stage during the summer seasons, she will instead call them "Green and Black" to match Yukiko's black blouse. If you do her Social Link after the fog descends on Inaba, her and other characters' dialogue will change accordingly.
• Divine Date: If romanced, Yu is pretty much dating Izanami.
• Failed a Spot Check: She claims that there isn't a TV in the Velvet Room, even though there's a functioning one right across from where Margaret is sitting.
• First Girl Wins: She is both the first girl Yu meets in Inaba and his Implied Love Interest. In a meta sense, Marie also is an example of Last Girl Wins; see below for the explanation.
• Fish out of Water: Being a resident of the Velvet Room, and thus Not Quite Human, Marie has very little understanding of how the human world works.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: Unlike other characters, the border around her social link arcana card is gold. Fittingly, it turns out she's the resident deity. The same goes with the Aeon card during Shuffle Time, which gives you four extra draws (almost always enough to complete the set) with no strings attached.
• Historical In-Joke: Her actual original identity is Izanami, as in Izanami-no-Mikoto before she died, whereas the other aspect who took their collective identity represents who she became in Yomi. Yu's "self" is Izanagi — Izanami's lover and later nemesis. Suddenly, her tsundere behavior towards Yu takes on whole new depths of meaning.invoked
• Honorary True Companion: Never an official member of the Investigation Team, but Marie interacts with all of them and the climax of Golden shows just how close she became with them.
• Iconic Item: Two of them: a padlock choker and a Bamboo comb.
• Identity Amnesia: Marie appears to have lost all her memories.
• Implied Love Interest: Gets quite a bit of Ship Tease with the Player Character, although you can still pick other people as your main romance.
• Instant Expert: After being saved from the Hollow Forest and being brought on the ski trip, she learns what a snowball fight is and pretty much becomes a snowball machine gun in a few seconds.
• Large Ham: Most of the time, she's pretty normal (in her standards), but once she's a Navigator in Persona Q, she suddenly goes all out with her lines.
• Last Girl Wins: While Marie is the first girl Yu meets in Inaba, in a meta-sense she was not added until the remake, making her the last potential love interest introduced to the game.
• Lethal Chef: Her cooking is not so much horrible as indescribable... though not necessarily bad. Just very VERY strange. Her attempts to make a chocolate for Valentine's Day using whatever she could find inside the Velvet Room ended up creating a concoction that a) smells through the gift-wrapped box, b) is still moving, c) will melt if you let it, d) will run away if it melts, e) actually tastes normal and is incredibly addictive, and f) continues to move in your stomach after being eaten.
• Love Confession:
  • On Valentine's Day, if Yu has romanced her, she'll tell him to close his eyes, before she admits that she loves him. It's then Sealed with a Kiss as the scene does an Iris Out.
  • In the Golden Ending epilogue, she does this to Yu, if the two are on romantic terms. On live television, no less.
• Mundane Utility: Well, not quite Mundane, but in the epilogue it's revealed that she uses her powers as a weather manipulator to become a forecaster with 100% accuracy. The entire team wonders what in god's name... or rather HER OWN name... she's thinking.
• The Nicknamer: She's made a habit of giving nicknames based on their most distinguishing characteristic (at least in her eyes). For example, Igor is "The Nose", for obvious reasons. This is Played for Laughs when she calls Chie "Green" and Yukiko "Red", as it leads to them suddenly realizing that they have a Limited Wardrobe and try to pick out more clothes... that are still green and red, respectively.
• No Social Skills: Since she's not exactly human to begin with, Marie has no idea over how to interact with people, so she often comes across as rather blunt even as she's not intending to be rude.
• Optional Boss: Progressing her social link opens up the ability to go to the Hollow Forest bonus dungeon. This area is sectioned off from the main game. It rewards very little exp and no items you can take back to reality with you. Instead, it drops items built to circumvent Marie's boss fight gimmick: she's completely immune to all the standard game elements, meaning you have to use the dungeon items to break her resistances or use the otherwise useless skills like Fire Break to get to her.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Marie's clothes are a random assortment of styles, including a plaid skirt, striped stockings, blue hat and a number of gold-coloured pins. This is because Marie herself has no idea what passes for fashion in the human world.
• Running Gag: In Persona 4 and the Q duology, if you go into the Velvet Room at various points, you'll sometimes see her out, and find a piece of her poetry randomly lying on the ground. She then comes back in, very angry and embarrassed, and in later instances, it's implied that Margaret is deliberately taking out her poetry and leaving it for the protagonist to see.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: She wears a nice black pinstripe suit in the extended epilogue of Golden while doing the weather and in the group photo.
• She's Not My Girlfriend: Throughout her social link, Yu's friends start getting suspicious that he and Marie are dating, leading to this reaction.
• Shock and Awe: She uses Hot Lightning in her boss fight and can even use it in the material world, as poor Yosuke and Teddie find out. Contrary to the name and the attack's appearance, though, it's actually Almighty damage.
  Yosuke: Uh, Marie-chan, electricity here's a bad idea!
  Marie: Disgusting creeps! I HATE YOU ALL!
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Forms a funny rivalry with Rise over their affection for the protagonist. And if romanced, Marie declares on live TV that she loves him as Rise voices her objection, regardless of whether anybody else has been courted.
• Shoo Out the New Guy: Likely as a result to the backlash she received for being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad; Atlus seems to have responded by reducing Marie's role in later spin-offs. Her parts in every game after Golden are minimal, to the point where in Dancing All Night, she's only playable in one DLC song and gets one mention in one unlockable chapter, not even by name.
• Sixth Ranger: In Persona 4: The Golden Animation, she participates in all of the Investigation Team's outings and even has her own All-Out attack portrait.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • It's implied that she existed offscreen in the original game and did what does she does without any intervention in Golden, letting herself die to take the fog with her. Here, you can find a way to keep her alive and get rid of only the fog.
  • Her existence on its own might as well be a What If? where Izanami didn't die and never went to Yomi.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: With Yu if romanced, but only if he doesn't ask Margaret to try and locate her when she mysteriously disappears and ultimately doesn't save Marie from the Hollow Forest, she commits suicide, not only destroying the fog but also removing herself from everyone's memories.
• Tsundere: Her first few words cement her as one.
• Undead Tax Exemption: Despite being Ambiguously Human with Identity Amnesia, she gets a job pretty easily. The paperwork is pretty lenient at Inaba, it seems. Being a literal Goddess probably helps.
• Verbal Tic: Whenever Marie gets upset or embarrassed she tends to speak in Angrish.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Rise. Lampshaded when Chie complains about how all their friends are like that, and Yukiko observes that "There aren't a whole lot of people who can really mess with Rise-chan."
• Weather Manipulation: She has control over meteorological phenomena, including the fog that keeps invading Inaba. While this is downplayed for the most part, the Golden Ending shows her taking up a job as a weather reporter, and any forecast she predicts ends up coming true every time.

The Fox (Hermit)

The Fox

Yip!

An old fox who lives around the old shrine in the Central Shopping District and serves as The Hermit Social Link for the game.

The fox initially recruits Yu to help fulfill wishes written on ema left at the shrine, in hopes it will help increase donations to the dilapidated shrine. The fox also offers to sell the Investigation Team healing leaves that restore all HP and SP in order to raise money for the shrine. Though the price for the fox's services are initially extremely high, they do go down the more requests Yu helps the fox grant.

After granting the various wishes of people around town, Yu and the fox succeed in saving the shrine, and eventually the donations to its offering box are used to build an entirely new shrine next to the old one, now plated in gold. The fox will then give Yu the Gratitude Ema, allowing him to fuse Ongyo-ki.

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• And Your Reward Is Clothes: In Golden, if you pet it after you've already done so on one of its "happy" days, it'll reward you with clothes for Chie, Kanji, and Teddie.
• Babies Ever After: If you max out its Social Link before the end of the game, when you visit them at the end of the game, they reveal they had a litter of fox pups living with them.
• The Catfish: The final request requires you to catch one of these, dubbed the Guardian. Golden requires you to also catch a second one, the Sea Guardian, that's even bigger.
• Fetch Quest: The Social Link! These quests are basically Yu giving hope to the town, so the Fox gets more donations.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: The authoress of one of the ema.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Another ema author, who's looking for a sticker so that he can get in on the latest fad.
• No Social Skills: The authoress of one ema, who comes off as quite rude at first, and even makes another girl cry due to blatantly insulting her in a misguided attempt to be friendly.
• Odd Name Out: Most of the quests begin with "I Wish" (or "We Wish" for the second quest/third Social Link), but the last one in Golden is "The Shichiri Beach Guardian," possibly because it's an updated version of the previous quest.
• Retired Badass: Seems to be this, with the scars all over its body.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: A benign version; it wants to raise money for the Shrine, so it employs Yu to solve problems written on emas to somewhat create the illusion that a mystical being of sorts is solving problems through the shrine, so people donate to it as thanks. This pays off in the end, where a new golden shrine is built next to the current one. Although also played with. Given that a mysteriously intelligent and knowledgeable fox and a Wild Card Persona user are genuinely granting wishes, it isn't as if powerful spiritual beings aren't involved. They just aren't using magic to make the miracles happen.
• Team Pet: Less so than Teddie, but more than Nanako, in that it actually does something for your team (restoring SP for a price).
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: One of the Social Link events has Yu help an ema author overcome his ailurophobia^note Fear of cats in order to get married. He also seems to be scared of fish to a lesser extent, as a Red Goldfish is the only one he doesn't find too creepy to accept when he plans on using food to get close to a cat. He gets over it at the end of his questline when he ends up attracting a lot of cats with the fish and he finds out how affectionate they are. He goes into Cuteness Overload just thinking about them the last time you talk to him.

Kou Ichijo and Daisuke Nagase (Strength)

Kou Ichijo and Daisuke Nagase

Kou (left) and Daisuke (right)

Voice actors: Daisuke Ono (Kou, Golden, Anime), Kohei Fukuhara (both: P4) and Tomokazu Sugita (Daisuke) (Japanese) and Vic Mignogna (Kou) and David Vincent (Daisuke) (English)

Stage actors: Motohiro Ota (Kou, VisuaLive and VisuaLive Evolution), Jyouji Saotome (Daisuke, VisuaLive and VisuaLive Evolution)

Kou and Daisuke are two friends at Yasogami High who are also the unofficial leaders of Yasogami's basketball and soccer teams respectively, and together serve as the Strength Social Link. The focus of their Social Link does, however, depend on which sports team you join.

Choosing Kou's route by joining the basketball team, Daisuke explains to Yu that Kou comes from a wealthy family that sticks to traditions so much that the head of the family, Kou's grandmother, looks down upon his obsession with basketball. Kou also feels burdened that he's actually adopted (he lost his biological family and then lived in an Orphanage of Love), and that the customs of the family will ultimately fall onto his sister. Although it makes him happy, it also makes him feel shunned by the family as a whole. By the end of his Social Link, Kou learns that his adopted family truly cares for him and gives Yu the Letter to Kou that his parents left for him, and he decides to study overseas to pursue what he wants to do in life.

Choosing Daisuke's route by joining the soccer team, Yu learns from Kou that Daisuke feels really bad for a middle school break-up with his first ex-girlfriend, and that he fears failing at doing his very best at both soccer and getting a girlfriend. With that in mind, Kou and Yu try to set him up with blind dates, but Daisuke gets irritated by this. At the end of his Social Link, Daisuke finds the strength to move on by speaking to the same ex-girlfriend that left him behind, and gives Yu a Spike Brush for his soccer cleats.

Regardless of the route chosen, both the Letter to Kou and the Spike Brush allow Yu to fuse Zaou-Gongen.

---

• Amazon Chaser: Kou shows no interest in Ai or any of the other traditionally feminine girls who pursue him at school, but turns into a stammering, blushing mess around Chie, a Hot-Blooded Action Girl.
• Ascended Extra: In VisuaLive they're representatives for the entire Social Link system, and are given much more focus as a result.
• Big Brother Instinct: Kou, by the end of his Social Link.
• Big Brother Mentor: Kou resolves to be this to his younger sister.
• Book Dumb: Daisuke isn't very good at school, and if you admit that you also hate math, he'll give you a book.
• But Thou Must!: You can show complete and utter aversion to Kou's harebrained plan to get Daisuke into dating, but the game will still make you do it. Being more willing to do it scores you more points, though.
• Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: Kou notably drops his usual laidback charisma in favor of nervousness whenever around Chie.
• Chaste Hero: Daisuke. His Social Link is all about explaining why.
• Chick Magnet: Kou is constantly going on dates. Daisuke is heavily implied to be popular with the ladies as well but is much less receptive. Further proven in Ai's Social Link, where she'll be revealed to have a crush on one of them depending on which sports club she's assigned to manage.
• The Dividual: They are typically paired together and are rarely seen without the other. Their Social Link is even called Fellow Athletes.
• Dramatic Irony: During an optional hangout on May 4th inside the Junes electronics department and seeing the huge TV, Daisuke imagines that if he watched sports on it, it'd be possible to get sucked into the TV. Yosuke, who is well-aware that it is possible to go inside that TV (at least if you have a Persona), reaffirms to him that it could never happen.
• "Eureka!" Moment: After Daisuke asks if the orphanage held onto the letter from Kou's family for ten years, Kou takes another look at it and realizes it was written recently, since the ink on his name is smeared and the envelope is fresh.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: Daisuke's Social Link involves him getting over his breakup with his first girlfriend.
• Guile Hero: Daisuke is quite good at retaining blackmail material for later use.
• Happily Adopted: While Kou initially struggles with his responsibilities to his adopted family, and begins to fear that he's been discarded when he no longer has to fulfill them, he eventually realizes that his family loves him.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Daisuke at the start of his Social Link.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: They're close enough that they share a Social Link. The "heterosexual" part gets called into question every now and then, though.invoked
• Hopeless Suitor: Kou comes off as this in the VisuaLive stage production, as many of his scenes deal with his crush on Chie to a comedic level.
• Ladykiller in Love: Kou has a crush on Chie.
• Limited Wardrobe: Daisuke wears his gym uniform even during school and on his days off. Lampshaded by Kou when he asks Yu to buy Daisuke some proper clothes as a parting gift, to which Daisuke argues that he does have more to pick from. Kou then suspiciously asks him if any of that isn't sports wear, and Daisuke goes conspicuously silent.
• Lovable Jock: Both of them are athletes who are very dedicated to their respective sports, but also friendly and easy-going guys.
• Nice Guy: They're both friendly and considerate, and form fast friendships with Yu soon after meeting him. Daisuke is slightly more hard-edged than Kou, but he's generally too good-natured to qualify as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Not Blood, Not Family: This is the core conflict within Kou's Social Link. As the adopted son of a notable family in Inaba, Kou feels like The Unfavorite compared to his younger sister who is their parents' biological daughter. This prompts him to try and search for his biological parents. While he never ends up finding them, Kou still gains closure after he's reassured that his adoptive family does love him.
• Out of Focus: Daisuke tends to play second fiddle to Kou, and gets less focus as a result. Kou even does considerably more in Daisuke's Social Link than Daisuke does in his.
• Parental Abandonment: Kou. Orphanage of Love included.
• Practically Different Generations: Kou is 16 and his adoptive parents' daughter Sachiko is two.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Kou is a cheery, charismatic guy who tends to take all things pretty lightly, while Daisuke is quiet, straightforward and task-oriented.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Kou is slender, extremely open with people, and enjoys fashion and dating while Daisuke is broad-shouldered, reserved, and never changes out of his gym uniform.
• Stepford Smiler: Kou during his Social Link, as he largely acts cheerful as always, and doesn't admit that he's troubled until he starts skipping practice.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: They tend to playfully bicker from time to time, and on Kou's Social Link, one of Kou's first remarks about Daisuke is that he's tired of seeing his face.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: In the anime of Golden, Kou can actually pull off a very convincing body double of Rise given that he's wearing her stage costume and a wig as well as covering his face. He uses this during the Junes concert to divert a crowd of rabid fans so the real Rise can quietly make it in time to the concert whilst he and Daisuke ambush the rabid fans with a fire extinguisher.
• Willfully Weak: Daisuke excuses his poor performance at practice as being because he didn't go all out, but a teammate mocks this by claiming to be "a freakin' juggernaut" at his peak. Daisuke gets over this by the end.

Ai Ebihara (Moon)

Ai Ebihara

Guys like pretty girls, don't they?!

Voiced by: Kanae Itō (Japanese) and Julie Ann Taylor (English)

The Moon Social Link and manager of whatever sports team you join.

Upon joining a sports club, Yu meets Ai. Once the Social Link starts, Ai takes him out to become friends. Once she tasks him with asking Kou or Daisuke what kind of girl they like, she ends up being devastated upon eavesdropping on them (Kou likes Chie, and Daisuke likes a nice girl) and is almost driven to commit suicide. Thanks to Yu, she slowly opens up to him and becomes a bit enamored with him.

At the end of her Social Link, Ai learns that being just beautiful isn't all there is to her and so gives Yu the Compact she used to compare herself to what she was before, understanding that people were better "mirrors" to show her true self, which allows Yu to fuse Sandalphon.

---

• Accidental Misnaming: In Episode 5 of the anime, she gets annoyed when Yu calls her "Ebi" (which, in Japanese, also means "shrimp").
• All Love Is Unrequited:
  • She falls in love with either Kou or Daisuke, but then she finds out that they like Chie and "nice girls", respectively. If you go the "friendship" route, she eventually gets over it.
  • You have the option of rejecting her a second time during the "friendship" route, if you max out her social link.
  • In the anime, she retains her crush on Kou even after learning that he was interested in Chie.
  • She also suggests that a boy she was interested in when she was young cruelly rejected her for being fat.
• Alpha Bitch: Pre-Character Development.
• Amicable Exes: If you take the "temporary lovers" route, and do not say that you need time apart when she breaks up with you at Rank 9 (doing so will break the link), the route concludes with her telling Yu that she considers him a friend, and apologizing for hurting his feelings.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Likes Daisuke/Kou due to this trope, since at Rank 4, they object to their teammates gossiping about her. She does the same with you, later on, for always being there for her.
• Better as Friends: If you hook up with her at Rank 6, Ai will eventually realise how shallow the relationship was and break up with you at Rank 9. This locks you out of her actual romance route.
• Compensated Dating: Discussed in regards to her. Ai doesn't do it as far as we know, but since she has good looks and her spending habits, she's rumored to have a sugar daddy or two. Daisuke/Kou is rather angry when he hears about it, though, and lectures the tattletales.
• Crush Blush: For Kou or Daisuke, initially. Starting with Social Link rank 9 during the "friendship" route, whenever she asks you out, she'll be sporting one of these.
• Cute Sports Club Manager: Unusually for this trope, she didn't become the manager by choice. She was forced into the job to pass due to low attendance, and even then she does next to no actual managerial work.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Acts like a bitch at first but quickly shows her inner feelings to Yu.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Piggy-Hara".
• Foil: To Yukiko. Both are from well-off families, but while Yukiko is heiress to a generations-old inn, Ai's family is Nouveau Riche. Personality-wise, Yukiko's shy and reserved, but opens up to her friends, while Ai is outwardly confident and abrasive, but uses that to cover up her insecurities.
• Formerly Fat: It's amazing what constant dieting can do!
• Freudian Excuse: Ai's harsh personality is due to being picked on as a child for being fat and poor.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Her jealousy of Chie is played up considerably more in the anime, resulting in a downright hilarious slap fight between the two.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: One of the two Social Links in this game that can actually become reversed if you tell her that her rejecting a guy "was downright cruel" or refuse to help her find out whether her crush is interested in her.
• Heroic BSoD: She gets one when she finds out that Kou/Daisuke isn't interested in her.
• I Just Want to Be Beautiful: A major theme of her Social Link. By the end Ai becomes a Reconstruction of the trope, as she realizes that true beauty is more than just fashion and good looks.
• In Love with Love: This is a big point in her Social Link as it is revealed that she just wanted to be in a relationship. In fact, if you accept her when she first asks, the Link will be an empty loveless affair that either turns platonic or severs completely at Rank 9. However, keep yourself a friend and she can become a Love Interest for real later on. Trips up many a Casanova Wannabe player.
• In-Series Nickname: The "Queen of Yasogami" or "Queen Ebihara" according to a couple of NPCs around the school.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hate her for being a tsundere that's astoundingly heavy on the tsuntsun. Then get her Social Link to Level 6 and beyond, and then hate yourself as you learn why she's like that.
• Kick the Dog: Just after reaching Rank 3, a guy will confess to Ai, but Ai will dismissively tell him that he's nowhere near good-looking enough. While it initially seems like Ai, who's one of the less sympathetic Social Links early on, is vain and superficial, it later turns out that she applies that same standard to herself.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: More so after some progress on her link.
• Love Hungry: Her biggest issue-she desperately wants someone to love her, but she has no idea how to love back.
• Love Hurts: The poor girl suffers rejection at least once (and twice if you max out her Social Link during the "friendship" route but don't romance her). If you turn her down at rank 10, she thanks Yu for doing so to her face, and for helping her grow as a person. But says that, for the moment, seeing him is just too painful.
• Meaningful Name: "Ai" is homophonous with "romantic love" in Japanese, and her Social Link deals largely with the people she's in love with and what it really means to be in love with someone.
• Nouveau Riche / Rich Bitch: Subverted. She initially comes off as a beautiful but cold-hearted girl, but it's revealed that her family used to be poor and she, in her own words, a "stinkin' fatso", making her prone to mockery. When her father struck gold in real estate (just a short while ago), she decided to change her image so she wouldn't be mocked anymore.
• Second Love: Possibly with Yu after she realized Kou/Daisuke doesn't like her.
• Spurned into Suicide: After overhearing that Kou/Daisuke doesn't care for her, she runs to the school rooftop and prepares to jump over the edge. Luckily, Yu gives chase and manages to talk her out of it.
• Suicide as Comedy: Zig-zagged. In-game, the near-attempt is treated rather seriously, with dramatic music playing and the game encouraging you to think carefully about your words. The anime plays it for laughs at the start, with her never even getting up the fence, but it's treated rather seriously afterwards when she reveals her backstory.
• Taking the Bullet: If you reject her initial confession, there will be a scene in which one of her angry suitors tries to slap Yu, but she takes the hit instead.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: After her family became rich, others became jealous of the Ebiharas and forced them to move.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Over the course of her Social Link, she goes from coming off as self-absorbed and using Yu to carry her bags or ask questions of the guy she likes, to valuing Yu as a person and being willing to shield him from an attacker. She even resolves to make it her goal to continue to become kinder.
• Unknown Rival:
  • Many students, including herself, view her as Yukiko's rival for the position of School Idol. If Yu ends up having them meet each other when out on a date with one of them, Yukiko reveals that she has no idea who Ai is.
  • In the anime, while the grudge is actually somewhat reciprocated this time, Chie has no idea that Ai views her as a rival for Kou's affections.

Yumi Ozawa (Sun — Drama Club)

Yumi Ozawa

Voiced by: Kanae Itō (Japanese), Melissa Fahn (English)

One of two potential candidates for the Sun Social Link and unofficial leader of the Drama Club.

By joining the Drama Club, Yu quickly makes a bond with Yumi. As time passes on, he learns about Yumi's father being bedridden in the hospital. Through family drama, Yumi cannot forgive how her father left her and her mother for another woman, even though he's going through his final moments. After her father passes away, Yumi can't tell how she actually felt about him. When she realizes that their parents tried hard to come up with a good name for her, she laments how she never got to thank her father at all.

At the end of her Social Link, Yumi quits the Drama Club to help her mother, realizing that acting was a way for her to hide her sorrow, and she gives Yu the Annotated Script, allowing him to fuse Asura.

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• Dare to Be Badass: She challenges the other club members to outdo her when they take turns reciting a line from a play.
• Demoted to Extra: In the anime, where she, ironically for an aspiring actress, only gets one brief appearance, and doesn't even get a line.
• Disappeared Dad: Her father left Yumi and her mother for another woman, but came back when he was dying of illness.
• Foil: To Ayane. Unlike Ayane, she's confident in her acting, at least until her personal issues force her to question why she got started in the first place, and feels as though the other club members aren't pulling their weight. By comparison, Ayane has less confidence in herself, to the point at which she actually refuses an opportunity to play, because she doesn't think she deserves it.
• It's All About Me: Shows shades of this halfway through her Social Link, when she feels more sorry for herself than for her father who is dying. Then again, we're talking about the same guy who has severely traumatized his daughter by leaving her and her mother for another woman, and only returns when he's already dying. Yumi may not be the one dying, but that doesn't mean she has it easy either.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Yumi has a lot of pent-up anger and a "harsh tongue" according to her mother. Most of this is self-protection however, as her father leaving her has left its marks.
• Limited Wardrobe: Apart from her winter and summer uniforms, Yumi only has one casual outfit she wears all year. She wears it to the summer festival date and to the first shrine visit of the new year, forgoing a kimono for the latter due to being in mourning.
• Love Hurts: Much like Ai during her "friendship" route, Yumi will confess her love for Yu at the end of her Social Link, will be devastated if you turn her down, and will eventually learn to deal with it.
• Meaningful Name: This is brought up in her Social Link, where her dying father said it meant "to bear fruit".
• Mood Whiplash: Yumi's Social Link takes a drastic turn from being about her passion for Drama Club to focusing on her dying father.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: A subtle and gradual example. In the first three ranks of her social link, if Yu refuses to spend time with her, she'll chide him for being lazy, and on days when club isn't in session, she'll proudly tell Yu that unlike the other members, she spends her free time studying acting. As such, it can be surprising when, as the route progresses and her father's condition worsens, that she barely seems to remember that club is in session.
• Out of Focus: The anime prefers Ayane over her, but she can be seen in the background sometimes, most memorably fuming silently at Kou's (lack of) acting skills.
• Serious Business: Acting is this for her, and in the beginning of her S.Link, this clashes with the other club members' views, as they see it as just a hobby.
• Suddenly Shouting: In one of her Links, she gets upset and begins yelling loudly enough for a nurse to ask her to keep her voice down.

Ayane Matsunaga (Sun — Music Club)

Ayane Matsunaga

Voiced by: Tomoka Endou (Japanese), Michelle Ann Dunphy (English)

The other potential candidate for the Sun Social Link and a freshman who manages the Music Club.

After Yu joins the symphonic band, he gets to spend the time with the shy Ayane, who plays the trombone. She is passionate about music, although she, unfortunately, isn't very good; a fact that she is keenly aware of. When a big opportunity to make her debut arises, Ayane practices non-stop but is eventually forced to give it up. Afterwards, she resolves to be a little bit more selfish so that she can stop backing out from events, Ayane is grateful to Yu.

By the end of her Social Link, Ayane decides to study music abroad after finishing graduation, and she thanks Yu by giving him the Homemade Ticket with her name printed on it so that he can watch her perform one day, and allowing him to fuse Asura.

---

• Appearance Angst: As listed in Hidden Depths, she holds a lot of frustration with the way she presents herself to others, and can as such come off as highly insecure in how she presents herself and generally worried about coming off as unneeded to the conversation at hand.
• Artists Are Attractive: Subverted, and in-universe. She's definitely adorable, but Ayane doesn't think of herself as such in spite of it.
• Author Appeal: According to an interview detailed in the Persona 4 art book, she's Shigenori Soejima's favorite cast member.
• Berserk Button: She does not like being mistaken for a kid. Given she's in her teens (same age as as Rise and Naoto, actually), this is very understandable.
• Blush Sticker: Yep. She earns her nickname "apple" for when she actually blushes.
• Butt-Monkey: She hasn't had the best luck compared to other girls in the series. This is especially evident if you take her to the Summer Festival date; she is the only person who doesn't win the lottery, only placing sixth and getting a book for it... only to then be mistaken for someone a fraction of her age, which sets her off.
• But Now I Must Go: After she graduates from high school anyway.
• Cannot Spit It Out: During Rank 8, she has trouble with confessing her feelings for Yu. He will recognize this and can choose to either beat her to the punch or change the subject entirely.
• Character Development: She initially starts off her Social Link as somebody with virtually no self-confidence to herself, but with the help of Yu and trial and error, she eventually admits she needs to stop worrying about how others see her and be true to herself, even if what she has to say would invariably hurt that person's feelings. This eventually motivates her at the end of the Social Link to go abroad to learn more about musical pursuits, but not before making sure Yu promises her that he'd be there when she got back.
• Cry into Chest: She weeps into Yu's chest out of frustration of letting Takeru take her place, as mentioned above.
• The Cutie: She's someone who's incredibly adorable and sweet overall, and is undoubtedly a Nice Girl. However, this is partially subverted when she confesses to Yu that she has a lot of intense envy and cynicism building up in her that causes her to be, to paraphrase, "a really selfish person deep down". Part of her Character Development has her come to terms with her worries and become much more okay with how she comes off to other people, and more relentless in achieving her ambitions.
• The Cynic: She actually is quite a bit, as she describes, "selfish" by virtue of pretending everything's fine and letting herself stir in angst at passing up her opportunities to appease others' happiness. This is strongly implied to be because of her negative body image and likely the harassment she received when she was younger for it.
• Determinator: She has her own dreams of being a musician, and she does not want to give it up. Fittingly, her character arc has her come to terms with her own frustrations and accept herself as is, becoming much stronger for it. When she told her parents that she wanted to leave to learn music overseas, her parents didn't challenge the idea, citing she was always this stubborn.
• Doing It for the Art: In-Universe. She wants to be a musician because she genuinely, really wants to have her musical talents shown throughout the world, due to the impact music had on her. Unfortunately, she has a ways to go.
• Dreadful Musician: Downplayed. She's not bad, but because she plays the trombone for the band, she isn't as good as it as Takeru is. This is justified, given her parents couldn't afford a flute but had a trombone in the closet for Ayane to learn. She definitely improves throughout the Social Link, though.
• The Empath: She is highly emotional and in-tune with others' feelings, and often finds herself stumbling over to let others be happy usually at the cost of her own progress. This ends up being the tipping point for her frustrations after she let Takeru take her assigned spot after a unexpected recovery, causing her to vent her frustrations to Yu as a result.
• Endearingly Dorky: To absolutely nobody's surprise, she becomes a blushing, stuttering mess whenever romanced, and is generally a very socially awkward and dorky character. This is something that ends up being a source of attraction from Yu should he romance her, with him outright finding that behavior attractive when going by dialogue options. She is surprised Yu would choose to hang out with her or even be her boyfriend, assuming there's far better girls than her. A major part of her Social Link is about helping her find her self-confidence, something that she is implied to strongly lack due to being the weak link of the Music Club alongside her highly youthful looks. It gets to the point where she's shy about being public about her relationship, or any relationship for that mater, romantic or not, to the point Daisuke assumes it's a "work in progress."
• Foil: To Yumi, who's outwardly more confident in her skills compared to the clubmates. While Yumi mentors you in acting, you essentially have to help Ayane through her own issues.
• A Friend in Need: Yu being there for Ayane after she passes up her chance of getting a spot on the band for a main performance causes her to angst heavily when she knows perfectly well she could've taken the opportunity herself, and Yu being there for her is a major catalyst in her developing feelings for Yu.
• Grew a Spine: The crux of her Character Development.
• Hidden Depths: She may strike off initially as a highly introverted Shrinking Violet, but talking with her shows there's a lot more to her overall:
  • She is incredibly frustrated with her having a delayed growth spurt in her teens when Rise, Naoto and Kanji, all of whom are the same age as her, look more like their age. This has impacted her self-esteem immensely, and part of building up her characters comes from helping her overcome this.
  • Despite trying her best to hide this side of her, she has a massive amount of hidden anger issues, outright stating to Yu that the real her was very selfish and cynical. Given all the frustration she has to deal with, it's definitely not hard to see why that is, especially with her body image.
  • She is intensely knowledgable and appreciative of classical music and music in general, wanting to go around the world to play music and share her artistic vision; absolutely no cynicism is to be found. She even took up a trombone when it became clear that was the only instrument she could've worked with due to costs, and eventually came to make it work!
  • She's also surprisingly resigned for someone who has a dream to have her music reach everywhere, due to having long considered her own issues to be insurmountable - this is further combined by her being The Empath, and her being able to see others' emotional issues easily if she knows the person well enough. This is why jokingly suggesting she should give up is the best choice to give her when talking to her during a stressful Social Link moment.
• Hollywood Homely: In-universe. She has a very negative body image of herself, to the point she's shocked when Yu hooks up with her, not getting why Yu would choose her. Truth is, while she isn't conventionally attractive like the other female characters, she is noted in-universe to not necessarily be appalling to look at, and to many others, she is cute in her own way because of it.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: She is easily one of the shortest females in the game, likely being only 4'11", while Yu is so far the tallest main protagonist in the series so far, being 5'11". It's hard to tell thanks to the PS2-era graphics, but Yu absolutely towers◊ over Ayane, and both of them can hook up if you play your cards right.
• I Am Not Pretty: She has a very hard time believing anyone would find her cute or even beautiful. Given how she's the same age as Rise yet doesn't seem to have hit a growth spurt yet, this is completely justifiable.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Her Valentine's Day event has shades of this, but she follows up by saying she's going to believe in you and have more confidence in herself.
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: Yu has a hunch what Ayane is going to say when the declaration is coming and will quickly change the subject should he not want to answer her feelings. Poor girl seems to have gotten the message, because she doesn't bring it up again afterwards.
  Ayane: Um... Senpai, I-I...
  > You changed the subject and relieved the tension.
  Ayane: ...Oh, uhhhh... N-Never mind... W-Well, I-I better get home! S-So, g-goodbye!
• Knight in Sour Armor: She's revealed to be surprisingly bitter regarding letting others take opportunities for her, but still did it. Deconstructed, because this was not helping her actively achieve what she really wanted: to be happy with herself more than anything. Helping her reaffirm her sense of self is a major crux of her character arc.
• The Load: She sees herself as this relative to the band team as a whole, but gradually subverts this the more you participate in the Social Link with her.
• Love Hurts: If the player chooses to interrupt Ayane's attempted confession by changing the subject, Ayane will be clearly heartbroken and will quickly part ways with the player while claiming that she needs to get home.
• Nice Girl: Even when a Shrinking Violet, Ayane is kind and unfailingly sweet. Unfortunately...
• Nice Guys Finish Last: ...she has a bad habit of passing up opportunities for social advancement to make others happy, something that has been really hurting her overall. She can get better as par of her Character Development, but even so.
• Older Than They Look: NPCs frequently mistake her for a middle-schooler. She's even mistaken for an elementary student at the summer festival. This is something that ends up being Deconstructed, as her having such a delayed growth spurt and being implied to have been bullied because of it has not given her a good sense of self-esteem. At all. To the point it's a Berserk Button to insinuate she's younger than she actually is.
• Plucky Girl: She eventually becomes this thanks to her Character Development, even growing a spine thanks to Yu's help.
• Prone to Tears: She can very often burst into crying if stressed, though she gets a lot better thanks to her Social Link.
• Shrinking Violet: She is very often prone to shutting herself off and letting others step all over her, so the point of her S-Link is helping her grow out of this.
• Suppressed Rage: Surprisingly enough, she has a lot of hidden anger and frustration issues to her name, and this is shown in how she outright admits to Yu she felt unappreciated over virtually everything, even when she busted her ass to get to that point because she didn't want to hurt that person's feelings. Which ties into her resolve of her confronting her issues head on and being more selfish than letting these unpleasant feelings dominate her any longer.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Her Summer Date reveals them to be apples, due to being associated with them a lot for being red like her Blush Stickers. Fittingly, it also represents being tart and cute on top of being a plant, which represents her natural personality and sensitivity as well.

Naoki Konishi (Hanged Man)

Naoki Konishi

Am I really that pitiable...?

Voiced by: Tsubasa Yonaga (Japanese) and Derek Stephen Prince (English)

The Hanged Man Social Link, a freshman, and younger brother of Saki, the second murder victim.

Due to the death of his older sister, everyone started pitying him for losing her forever, which he hated. However, Naoki slowly realizes that he could never mourn his dead sister like everyone else did, feeling very different from everyone else. At the end of his Social Link, he musters the courage to go with Yu to where Saki's body was discovered, a place he had yet to go to since, where Naoki finally manages to cry and mourn her death, allowing him to move on. Vowing to invest in his family's business so they can flourish despite the competition from Junes, he gives Yu the Junes Receipt, allowing him to fuse Attis, and plans on taking courses in college about making beer to further help his family.

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• Adaptation Expansion: Befriends the entire Investigation Team and not just Yu in the anime. In the manga, he's fairly prominently featured in Volumes 5 and 6, when most Social Links outside the party and the Dojimas don't appear at all.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He is first mentioned on one of Yu's earlier days at school, before Saki even goes missing. In Golden, you even see him having an argument with her on your first day. Yu finally meets him a few months later.
• Childhood Friends: With Kanji. He's also acquainted with Yukiko, but isn't as close to her.
• Compressed Adaptation: Although what may be his entire Social Link is compressed into two scenes spanning five minutes in the anime. The manga inclues a few of his scenes, such as encountering a housewife who nags him about being there for his family, going to Junes and visiting the place where his sister's body was found.
• The Cynic: Shows signs of this, such as when he observes that some customers are stopping by his family's store "out of pity." If Yu suggest that his parents should charge extra, he'll approve of the idea, since it makes his family money and lets the customers "be hypocrites."
• Defrosting Ice King: When he's first introduced, he's fairly rude, and says that he hates Yu and Yosuke. Subverted later on, as he turns out to be relatively nice, apologizing for his initial harsh treatment of Yu, and even warming up to Yosuke.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Absolutely hates the fact that all he's getting from people is sympathy now, particularly when he believes it to be insincere. It's also preventing him from properly mourning his sister's death. He finally gets the courage to tell his classmates to stop giving him special treatment at the end of his Social Link.
• Food Theme Naming: Konishi is a brand of sake sold in Japan.
• Freudian Excuse: He acts like a jerk at first because his sister died and everyone coddles him, which prevents him from mourning her.
• Incriminating Indifference: A variant in that he's not a suspect, but is accused of being cold and indifferent about her death. Towards the end of his Social Link, he's finally able to mourn and move on.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: See Defrosting Ice King above. He gets off on the wrong foot with Yu and is a bit cynical, but is a good person at heart.
• Odd Friendship: With Yosuke. In the manga, it's Yosuke, rather than Yu, who takes the initiative to befriend Naoki.
• Parents as People: His parents are having just as hard of a time accepting Saki's death as he is, since they don't talk about her but cry over her at night. After coming to terms with the loss and crying over Saki at Rank 9, Naoki goes to talk with his parents.
• The Resenter: He initially hates Yu and Yosuke, possibly because his sister works at the latter's department store.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Cream puffs, something he shares in common with his sister. Opening the fridge and seeing a batch of cream puffs untouched and expired when she otherwise would’ve eaten them is it what makes it sink in for him that she really is gone.
• Unable to Cry: Very troubled by his inability to mourn for his sister.

Eri Minami (Temperance)

Eri Minami

Do you like children?

Voiced by: Miki Itō (Japanese) and Valerie Arem (English)

The Temperance Social Link and a stepmother to a boy who frequents the daycare Yu can work at.

Eri's story revolves around her stepson, Yuuta. Yu finds out that the two of them are very distant: Eri can't seem to get close to Yuuta, and Yuuta doesn't accept her as his mother. Using really vague tips from TV and magazines, Eri does a rather bad job at getting Yuuta to like her. Through interactions, Yu helps the two of them to become united.

At the end of the Social Link, Eri finds out that she never had the strength to face Yuuta directly, so now she and Yuuta recognize each other as a family, and Eri thanks Yu for helping them by giving him the Clover Bookmark, saying that she already has enough happiness, and allowing him to fuse Vishnu.

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• Affectionate Nickname: She calls Yuuta "Yuu-kun" for most of the link. Interestingly enough, she actually stops doing so after they start to actually bond as mother and son.
• All of the Other Reindeer: She implies that she's not very popular among the other mothers of children at daycare, partly because of her being a second wife and from the city, and she even blames Yuuta for this.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
  • For all their awkwardness toward each other, they do actually care for one another, as when Yu makes Eri cry in Rank 8 of the Social Link, Yuuta assumes that Yu's bullying his mother^note which is only true if you picked "It's your own fault" and punches him, enabling Eri to reach her epiphany regarding Yuuta's true nature.
  • In the anime adaptation, when Eri is being badmouthed by one of the mothers (even being called a failure of a mother), Eri passively accepts it. Yuuta on the other hand shoves the woman badmouthing Eri, causing her to retaliate by hitting him with her purse. Eri immediately gets in front of the oncoming blow and takes it for him instead. With her knocked out and bleeding, a worried Yuuta begs for Yu to help her. Once Yu and Sayako manage to patch her up, Yuuta calls her "mom" and gives her a big hug, relieved to see her alright. Eri and Yuuta then enjoy the festival together.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: A mild example. She's generally a polite and friendly woman, but she's also quickly revealed to be rather careless and self-centered after Yu begins spending more time with her. Despite this, she's clearly a good person at heart, and she eventually outgrows her flaws by the end of her Social Link.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Her Social Link would be a lot shorter if she or Yuuta would just talk with each other for a change. Most of the time, whenever the opportunity comes up, they decide to keep silent, often to the frustration of the other, thus dragging on the problem. Yu notes that they both unknowingly pity each other, yet both are distancing themselves from the other at the same time.
• Children Raise You: Her struggles to understand her new son cause her to gain a new understanding of herself.
• Continuity Cameo: At the start of the story mode in Arena, before the Investigation Team goes back into the TV, you can see Eri and Yuuta in the background at Junes.
• Doting Parent: Yu can call her this in the penultimate rank of her Social Link. While she doesn't take it as far as the trope description, she does defend Yuuta when other people call him a troublemaker and good-for-nothing, stuff she once believed. Instead, she learns he's loyal, apologizes when he needs to and is actually a pretty sweet boy.
• The Fatalist: At one point, she brings up how she saw an item on TV about fate, and how your entire life is determined from before you were even born. At first she thinks it's a pretty wonderful idea, but by the time you max her Social Link, she calls herself stupid for believing those spiritual lectures on TV, saying she was just running away from her problems.
  • Though she does wonder whether it's fate when she and Yuuta randomly decide to the hill overlooking town, not knowing this was also one of the places Yu would visit on his last day in Inaba.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: She admits that she may have rushed into marriage. She didn't even know the man she was going to marry had a son! She thought everything would work out itself, but she isn't so sure anymore by the time you meet her.
• Housewife: Has no job and is clearly rather bored and dissatisfied with her life. When she isn't watching Yuuta, she mostly spends her time watching TV, surfing the internet or reading magazines at home.
• Maternally Challenged: She once mentions reading in a magazine about how a woman's maternal instincts kick out when breastfeeding and she's quite depressed over it. It's obvious that she doesn't know how to be a mother to her new son.
• Never My Fault: She tends to blame Yuuta for her troubles connecting with him, but that's only half-correct, as both of them are unwilling to get closer to the other.
• Small Town Boredom: It's not quite as much of a problem for her as it is for Yosuke and Adachi, but she admits that she finds the town boring, and there's not much to do besides watch TV or surf the Internet.
• Stepford Smiler: A mix between depressed and empty. Depressed because she's very lonely in Inaba, with her husband working overseas, her stepson avoiding her and having no friends among the other mothers; empty because she is unable to do anything about it herself and instead spends her days watching TV. Whenever she smiles, it's mostly to laugh away her problems.
• Taking the Bullet: In the anime, Eri is injured when she takes a blow to the head meant for Yuuta. It takes Yu anxiously calling Sayoko over the phone and several coincidences caused by Nanako for her to recover.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: When she shows up to pick up Yuuta and he acts distant to her, she bitterly complains that she didn't leave in the middle of her show to be treated this way.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Yuuta's father is overseas on business.
• Wicked Stepmother: Yuuta thinks she's this, but only because he never actually interacts with her out of his fear that she hates him.
• You're Not My Father: Eri thinks this is what Yuuta thinks of her, but can't properly interact with him because Yuuta thinks she hates him.

Sayoko Uehara (Devil)

Sayoko Uehara

Voiced by: Natsuko Kuwatani (Japanese) and Wendee Lee (English)

The Devil Social Link and a nurse Yu meets while on his part-time job as a hospital janitor.

Flirting with Yu at first, Sayoko opens up to him and reveals her backstory. Because of her behavior, she dated a married doctor that ended up flirting with other girls even though she left him behind. After dealing with the doctor's wife, things get worse for her after hearing that a patient of hers in the last hospital died. She feels extremely saddened by the news that she becomes a workaholic, demanding everyone to do their very best, and eventually collapses from exhaustion.

By the end of her Social Link, Sayoko realizes that she was trying to flee from her feelings by working hard, and that she was losing her goal to care for others, and she gives Yu her Hospital ID, allowing him to fuse Beelzebub. Before the ending, Yu hears that she joined a medical association and went to Africa, as well as the fact that she genuinely had a crush on him.

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• Chekhov's Gunman: In the anime, her relationship with Yu and her job come in handy during the summer arc, when Eri suffers a bleeding head injury.
• Continuity Cameo: At one point during the Death Confidant in Persona 5, Tae Takemi speaks to a person named "Uehara-san" when she calls the hospital, who is implied to be Sayoko.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: She grew to hate hospitals, the life and death, always getting left behind no matter what happens. At one point during the Social Link she wonders what she is even living for. She tries to compensate by becoming a Workaholic, until she remembers that she became a nurse because she wanted to save lives, and it's as simple as that.
• Foreshadowing: If her Social Link is maxed as soon as possible, it mostly takes place in a room which is mostly obscured off-camera and otherwise has nothing of note, but on the final rank, it's then revealed that there's a large TV there, slightly smaller than the Junes one. Sure enough, it gets used later. If this event was reached near the end of the game, it wouldn't be surprising to the player.
• Gold Digger: Mild example. She admits that she usually goes for older rich men, but she doesn't seem to mind that her 'boyfriend' (well, sort of) turned out to be "some kid with a rag in his hand".
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: In the anime, where she immediately gets drunk and drags Yu with her.
• Hospital Hottie: She flirts with Yu the first few times they meet, but it's just teasing; she's not actually serious. In fact, she's most impressed with you (and the social link ranks up fastest) if you shut her down hard for the inappropriate comments.
• Last-Name Basis: Most of her coworkers refer to her as "Uehara-san."
• May–December Romance: At the end of her Social Link, she transfers to another hospital, but she still refers to Yu as her "boyfriend". Before that, she dated a married doctor older than her. It didn't end well.
• Not Me This Time: The wife of a doctor Sayoko was previously involved with comes to the hospital to confront her about the doctor's latest infidelity... with another nurse.
• Optional Sexual Encounter: If you pick a particular choice during her Social Link, the screen will Fade to Black, Sayoko's dialogue box will appear with some suggestive dialogue, and when it fades back out, Sayoko and Yu will be close to a hospital bed. Pretty heavily implying that the two screwed. This makes this example unique amongst the other SLs, because not only does Sayoko not count as a "normal" romantic choice amongst the SLs... it also happens pretty early on. Gameplay-wise, this actually slows down the development of the SL and it's to be avoided in time-efficient walkthroughs.
• The Tease: At the start of her Social Link.
• Workaholic: Pre- and post-Character Development. She starts out as somewhat disillusioned with her job, but then throws herself into it after hearing about one of her patients dying. In the end, though, she rediscovers her passion for the job and ends up volunteering in Africa.

Hisano Kuroda (Death)

Hisano Kuroda

I am death...

Voiced by: Ikuko Tani (Japanese) and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (English)

An elderly widow who calls herself "death". If her self-proclaimed title didn't give her away, she's the Death Social Link.

Yu meets Hisano by the river, and she slowly but surely tells him about how her late husband and herself loved each other so much up till the point he suffered from a "disease" (which is all but stated to be dementia) that made him forget who she was every day, only making her feel deep emotional pain until he passed away. By talking to Yu, Hisano manages to come to terms with his passing, and live her remaining years to the fullest.

At the end of her Social Link, Hisano thanks Yu by giving him her Old Fountain Pen and allowing him to fuse Mahakala, and leaves Inaba to live with her children.

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• Cool Old Lady: She has her issues, but aside from those, she's quite pleasant and friendly to the main character.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: It's pretty obvious that the "disease" her husband died from was some kind of dementia, most likely Alzheimer's (although it's possible Hisano simply didn't know what it was called).
• Easy Amnesia: Harshly subverted in her backstory, where her aging husband contracts dementia and forgets he ever loved her.
• Flower Motifs: Her comb has the image of a yellow chrysanthemum, a symbol of lost love.
• Granny Classic: Her morbid subject matter aside, she's nothing but lovely to Yu and mentions that he reminds her of her own grandchild, which is a reason that she approaches him to begin with.
• His Story Repeats Itself: In the anime, Yu spent a lot of time trying to recover her comb from the Lake Guardian and hands it back to her at the festival. It triggers a relapse in her due to Yu's heavy resemblance to her late husband, who first gave the comb to her years ago.
• It's All Junk: When Yu recovers the letters she wrote to her husband, Hisano attempts to burn them. In the anime, it's a comb that she tosses into the river that's later stuck into the fins of the Guardian, but Yu, after many misadventures, gets the comb back. She actually keeps it.
• I Was Quite a Looker: A brief flashback in the anime shows her to be this.
• I Wished You Were Dead: When her husband became ill and began forgetting who he was, Hisano wished he would die so neither of them would have to suffer anymore. She considered his death a Mercy Kill since the husband she'd known was already 'dead'.
• Love Hurts: The pain of knowing that her husband, whom she loved, no longer remembered feeling the same way, caused her to believe that he died because she wished it, until seeing the letters, the proof of her love, helps give her perspective.
  Hisano: (on referring to a love letter she sent to her husband) I loved him this much and because I loved him, it saddened me when he forgot my love.
• Meaningful Name: Her surname matches both her outlook and her wardrobe in that they all contain copious amounts of black^note her surname is written with the kanji '黒', meaning 'black'..
• Mythology Gag: The way she dresses resembles the cryptic Lady in Black from Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
• Tarot Motifs: Played perhaps a bit more literally than most cases, since Hisano actually refers to herself as Death and her Social Link deals with both the literal and emotional consequences of death.
• Victorious Childhood Friend: She was one to her husband, who dated her when his traveling theater troupe came into Inaba once a year.
• You Remind Me of X: Yu reminds her of her husband (though she claims her husband was more handsome). The anime shows in a flashback that Yu does have some resemblance to her husband in his youth.

Shu Nakajima (Tower)

Shu Nakajima

Voiced by: Mitsuhiro Ichiki (Japanese) and Sam Riegel (English)

The Tower Social Link and a young boy Yu can tutor as a part-time job.

After becoming smarter, Yu takes on the job to tutor Shu. At first, Shu asks him how school is, telling Yu how he has the pressure of being the very best of his class for his mom, and things start getting bad after a talented and athletic guy joins the school. When Shu becomes a bit paranoid and cheats on the test, his mother scolds him. With Yu's help, Shu learns that he doesn't need to be the best all the time, and he thanks Yu by giving him his Test Results, allowing him to fuse Shiva, before cancelling the tutoring so that he can play baseball.

Later on before the ending, it's revealed that Shu befriended the very same student that he wanted to beat in grades.

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• The B Grade: Fear of getting a B and disappointing his mother is what eventually drives Shu to cheat on a test.
• Cram School: Previously attended this, but quit because it wasn't rigorous enough.
• Crippling Overspecialization: While school is very important, Shu admits that he doesn't have any friends or interests outside of it, which is why he's so desperate to succeed.
• Education Mama/My Beloved Smother: His mother is always showering him praise for his excellent grades in school, and wants him to attend the best college possible, as that would "set" him for life. She does it because she doesn't want him to know hardship, unaware of the pressure this puts on him. It's implied she drops this attitude at the end of his Social Link.
• Heroic BSoD: Has quite the breakdown in the anime.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: He laments how he can't connect with the other children in his class, although it doesn't help that he sneers at them for being dumb. Resolved at the end of his Social Link, when he becomes friends with his former rival and a few other kids, and joins a baseball team.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: He's initially dismissive of the transfer student, saying that the new kid didn't live up to the hype as a city kid, and Shu is still top of his class. After Shu gets caught cheating, Shu reveals that he was actually more threatened by the new kid than he was willing to admit, believing that since he sacrificed everything else in the name of studying, he'll have nothing if he's second to that kid.
• Insufferable Genius: Initially, he looks down on everyone not as smart as him, including Yu. This changes over the course of his Social Link.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's rather abrasive to Yu at first, and threatens to have him replaced if he's not up to the job. There's even an option when you first meet him to say "Wow, you're a little prick," to which he responds by saying that people often tell him that. He reveals his Heart of Gold after the first few meetings, though, especially considering his concern for his rival.
• Meaningful Name: One of the readings of his name is "Genius".
• Necessary Fail: Shu says that after being suspended for cheating, he has a black mark on his permanent record and is no longer able to stick to the "right" path of a good college and a good company. He's fine with that, though, since the experience forced him to open his eyes and broaden his horizons.
• Plagued by Nightmares: He has a recurring dream in which he's on a train going to an unknown destination. He's unable to leave the train, and is being pursued by a strange figure, who gets one car closer every night.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He feels pressured to be the very best at everything because he is terrified his mother won't love him anymore if he isn't the best. In reality, she loves him unconditionally.

Minor Characters

Mayumi Yamano

Mayumi Yamano

Voiced by: Kanae Itō (Game, Japanese), Yuko Kaida (Anime) and Valerie Arem (Game, English)

A TV announcer, she is the center of the media attention after her scandalous affair with married political secretary Taro Namatame. She is killed on Yu's first day in Inaba.

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• Chekhov's Boomerang: The room she was killed in is the first place Yu enters in the TV World and later where the Investigation Team confronts the killer.
• Driven to Suicide: In a sense; the noose in her room in the TV World implies that she had suicidal thoughts, and it might have been how she was killed by her Shadow (after all, it is a manifestation of her inner self).
• Green-Eyed Monster: Implied to be one. The first room Yu and his friends enter has posters of Namatame's wife with her face cut off.
• The Lost Lenore: To Namatame.
• Love Triangle: With Namatame and his wife. That said, Namatame's relationship with his wife was on the rocks, and he'd been separated from her at the time, which is used to rule out the possibility that Misuzu killed Mayumi out of jealousy.
• Sacrificial Lamb: She is killed the same day Yu arrives.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The Killer accidentally discovered his powers after he pushed her into a TV, and Namatame's attempts to "save" the victims are motivated in large part by her death.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Since Yamano was last seen alive at the Amagi Inn, and her complaints apparently caused Yukiko's mother to collapse, Yukiko is briefly seen as a suspect in the murder case. The inn also gains a reputation of being cursed, as well as attention from a "news of the weird" TV show.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: She is briefly mentioned during the prologue before being killed within the first ten minutes of the game.

Misuzu Hiiragi

Misuzu Hiiragi

A popular enka singer and the estranged wife of Taro Namatame.

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• Awful Wedded Life: There were many problems between her and Namatame, partly due to his career, which likely led to him having an affair with Mayumi Yamano.
• The Ghost: She never actually appears in the game due to being abroad. At most, posters of her likeness can be seen at Junes and the enka song "Someone Else's Man" was sang by her.
• Kimono Is Traditional: She wears a red kimono because of her occupation as an enka singer.
• The Maiden Name Debate: She apparently kept her maiden name, likely because of her career as a singer.
• Red Herring: A minor one, as she has a possible motive for killing her husband's mistress. However, she was not in Inaba at the time of the murders, which was confirmed by her phone records.
• Woman Scorned: Played with. She sues Namatame after learning about his infidelity, but Dojima notes that she had already cut ties with him, so she has no real reason to kill Yamano.

Saki Konishi

Saki Konishi

Voiced by: Hina Nakase (Japanese) and Jessica Straus (English)

A third-year at Yasogami High, Saki is the eldest daughter of the family who owns local store Konishi Liquors, and the older sister to Naoki. She works part-time at Junes and Yosuke has a major crush on her. A few days after discovering Mayumi Yamano's body, she becomes the killer's second victim.

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• Ambiguous Situation: While it's clear that she didn't quite feel the same way toward Yosuke that he hoped she would, it's unclear whether or not what Yosuke hears from her Shadow's remains are her true emotions, as Shadows have a track record of exaggerating the truth.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: To an extent. She acts kindly towards Yosuke when she first appears but when the player visits her shop at the Twisted Shopping District, it turns out she actually resented him and Junes for ruining her family shop. That said, while Yosuke acknowledges Saki's disliking him, he still considers her a good person and chooses to remember her with a certain degree of fondness. Considering that it's implied to be what remains of her Shadow saying that, it's likely that this wasn't the entire story. Unfortunately, considering that she's dead, getting any conclusive proof is impossible.
• Hidden Depths: According to her younger brother Naoki, Saki hoped that one day, her working at Junes would somehow benefit her family. Naoki concludes that while Saki was generally a bit of a flake, she showed her reliable side back then.
• I Have No Son!: Averted. Though she believes her family resents her for working at Junes, Naoki's Social Link reveals that her entire family greatly misses her.
• The Lost Lenore: To Yosuke.
• Mistaken for Romance: During his interrogation, Adachi accuses Saki of getting "pretty cozy" with Namatame. Namatame was actually trying to warn her about the threat to her life.
• Punny Name: Her family runs the local Liquor store, and not only does 'Saki' sounds very similar to 'sake', but Konishi is a also brand of sake sold in Japan.
• Secret Relationship: At rank 6 of Yosuke's Social Link, Yu overhears a conversation between Saki's coworkers that Saki was in a relationship with a college student and planned to leave the town together. Since the two girls appear to dislike Saki, it's unclear how true this is.
• She Knows Too Much: Adachi believes that Saki was killed because of something that she might have witnessed. It turns out Saki didn't know anything at all; her finding Yamano's body was simply the pretext the killer used to get her alone with him.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Her appearance on the Midnight Channel and subsequent death is what motivates Yu and Yosuke to begin investigating the TV World, leading to them awakening their Personas and forming the nucleus of the Investigation Team. Also, Naoki's Social Link is mostly about him trying to cope with her death.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: She dies two days after she is introduced.

Mr. Morooka

Kinshiro "King Moron" Morooka

You're on my shitlist, effective immediately!

Voiced by: Osamu Ryutani (Japanese) and Kirk Thornton (English)

Yu's homeroom teacher. He really dislikes unruly students and looks down on (or outright curses) any popular trends in the school. That doesn't stop him from being a Risette fanatic behind the scenes. Eventually, he's replaced by Ms. Kashiwagi.

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• 0% Approval Rating:
  • His students don't like him and his foul attitude. Yu can even call him out on it in his first appearance.
    Yu: You calling me a loser?
  • The news report after his death even comments that Morooka was extremely unpopular among his students, which provides a long list of suspects behind who killed him.
• The Alcoholic: It's heavily implied during the camping trip that he frequently indulges in booze during his free time. He even forces early curfew on his student just so he can be alone drinking.
• Asshole Victim: He's not a popular guy, being excessively judgmental of his students and very severe in his criticism of them. Doesn't mean he deserved to be murdered, though.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: After a fashion. He is extremely unlikable and his dialogue indicates he has some repressed sexual urges that he turns into rather cheap and very hypocritical moralism, but, in his classes, he sometimes actually delivers some fine points on his subject, philosophy.
• Did Not Die That Way: Naoto reveals that out of the three deceased victims, Morooka's cause of death was actually from some very obvious blunt-force trauma to the head, in contrast to the others, which the police still can't determine. This foreshadows that Mitsuo isn't the true killer.
• Dirty Old Man: While he rails against teenagers for such things, he's stated to be a huge fan of Rise.
• Embarrassing Nickname: He's known as "King Moron" to his students ("Morokin" in the Japanese version). Yukiko, Naoto, and Yumi are among the few to regularly call him by his proper name.
• Establishing Character Moment: He very quickly shows that he is a judgmental, straight-edge asshole when he accuses his entire class of being hormonal maniacs and then calls Yu a sad sack and a loser to his face completely unprovoked.
• Expy:
  • He's a Sadist Teacher with goofy-looking teeth and seems to hate the protagonist and his friend just for existing. He and Mr. Akashi should hang out sometime.
  • He also strongly resembles a more realistic-looking Iyami from Osomatsu-kun.
  • Might be one for Mr. Kinpachi, a Japanese drama character. Both have a similar haircut, wear pinstripe suits, and genuinely want their students to succeed. The difference is Kinpachi is not at all abrasive as Morooka.
• Gonk: Just... look at those teeth! The guy looks like Steve Buscemi if he got hit by a bus.
• Hate Sink: Morooka is a Sadist Teacher who enjoys insulting everyone he crosses paths with for no reason other than being a jerk. His bad reputation with his students even earned him the nickname "King Moron".
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Implied to utilize Tough Love to push his students to their academic limits. Unfortunately, this only gets alluded to a few times and the player never learns firsthand if this is true.
• Hypocritical Humor: He complains about the degradation of society, but drinks on the job during the school trip.
• Jerkass: His nickname is well earned.
• Kick the Dog: When we first meet him, he calls Yu a loser even though he never did anything to ignite his wrath. After Saki's death, he makes a harsh comment about her and the first victim, Mayumi Yamano.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: The player only starts to learn about his nicer traits after he's been offed, as a direct result of this. He, on the other hand, speaks quite a lot of ill of Saki Konishi after her murder.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Seriously, he looks like Steve Buscemi.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Rarely is he ever called anything other than "King Moron" ("Morokin" in Japanese) by the protagonists.
• Pet the Dog: One girl on the school hallway reveals that he once gave her a piece of candy to cheer her up. Further chatter reveals that he apparently offers sound career advice to those that dare ask him for it.
• Properly Paranoid: Possibly. Morooka accuses Yu of being The Casanova since he's a city kid. Depending on how you develop your Social Links, he might be right.
• Punny Name: His name sounds like "King Moron", which the class realised some time ago and ran with.
• Sadist Teacher: He's not exactly the nicest guy in the world.
• Smug Straight Edge: He's a judgmental asshole who always accuses his students of indulging in sex and drugs and whatnot.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!: Because his successor was somehow even worse than him, but after his death the class started to miss him.

Hanako Ohtani

Hanako Ohtani

Voiced by: Ryou Agawa (Japanese) and Jessica Straus (English)

A fat girl and Yu's schoolmate. Just like Noriko, she considers herself to be drop-dead gorgeous, and bullies every girl in the school because of this view.

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• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • The anime briefly sets her up to look like one of these when she confronts Kanji at the end of the camping trip. In reality, she was there to apologise for giving him the wrong idea.
  • In The Golden she gets a moment of this when Yu, Yosuke and Kanji take their new bikes to Okina, where she flirts with Yosuke and then crushes his scooter.
  • She can become this to Yu in the games if the player tracks her down as the one leaving gifts in his locker.
  • Her flirtations with Yu, Kanji, Yosuke and Teddie after they accidentally sneak into her room during their stay at the Amagi Inn qualify as this too.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: A lot of her jerkass moments in the game do not appear in the anime:
  • During the camping trip, she wasn't enjoying her whole big meal alone and not sharing. She instead opts to eat up the remnants of Mystery Food X and at least likes it.
  • We also see what happens if she's about to refuse someone (Kanji) rather than being the one stalking. Rather than insulting them, she'll honestly apologize and suggests about forgetting what happened.
  • Her insults towards the girls before the Beauty Pageant didn't happen, so she just happened to participate, lost and that's it.
• Delusions of Beauty: She believes herself one of the prettiest girls in school but is a morbidly obese Gonk-looking girl with the personality to match.
• Everyone Has Standards: In Golden, after dragging him around the Fireworks Festival in August, she concludes that Teddy is too much of a Manchild to be her boyfriend.
• Extreme Omnivore: In the anime, she eats Mystery Food X... and actually likes it.
• Fan Disservice: An In-Universe example. She joins the beauty pageant, happily parading onto the stage in a skimpy two-piece bikini set.
• Fat and Proud: She has a very high body image of herself. Not bad, considering someone with that body would probably be mercilessly teased into insecurity by middle school.
• Fat Bitch: She's a hideously fat, selfish, vain creature with only one redeeming quality: because she secretly has a crush on Yu, she occasionally leaves useful items as gifts in his shoe locker. In the anime, while still somewhat obnoxious, she's noticeably nicer, especially when she shows a degree of reluctance and guilt at having to reject Kanji after an awkward, accidental, intimate encounter between the two.
• Gonk: She's very fat and ugly. Even Teddie is scared of her.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Ms. Kashiwagi, who's much older than she is.
• Jerkass: Less so in the animated adaptation. She's introduced making a huge serving of curry and rice for herself and rudely refusing to share it with Yu, Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko after the girls' own cooking ends up as Mystery Food X. She's then shown keeping up Chie and Yukiko with hideously loud snoring, and arrogantly entering herself in the beauty contest, rudely dismissing the other girls as guaranteed to lose to her. In The Golden, a mandatory event prior to the camping trip has her destroy Yosuke's new scooter and show not the slightest guilt for it, instead insulting his "dumb scooter" and telling Yosuke he needs to "get more serious" if he wants a steady relationship before casually wandering away.
• Never My Fault: She crushes Yosuke's scooter by hopping onto it but instead of apologizing for paying for the damages, she instead mocks Yosuke for having a cheap scooter and leaves.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Her only redeeming quality is that sometimes she leaves useful items in Yu's shoe locker.
  • In the anime, one of her Jerkass moment of not sharing her mountain of food during the Camping Trip is omitted and replaced by offering to eat Chie and Yukiko's Mystery Food X... and liking it.
• Small Name, Big Ego: The hideous Gonk thinks of herself as a gorgeous beauty and lords herself over everyone else. No wonder she and Kashiwagi-sensei are friends.
• Trash Talk: Engages in this along with Kashiwagi just before the beauty pageant along with Kashiwagi. Which is not a good idea when your targets are Rise, Chie, Yukiko, and Naoto.

Ms. Kashiwagi

Noriko Kashiwagi

Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara (Japanese, game), Hitomi Nabatame (Japanese, anime) and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (English)

The protagonist's second homeroom teacher. She desperately wants to believe that she's the most gorgeous woman in the school, to the point that she'll compete with her own students for attention.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: While she appears to be pretty good looking (though maybe less to characters in-series), her over the top and inappropriate attitude turns off pretty much all of her students.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Answer some academic questions, show her some cute weapons, or score high on the exams, and she'll reward you with some outfits that she wanted to get rid of.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She's a lady with a, shall we say, "dubious" personality, to be sure, but she is legitimately a smart woman and educator, asking complicated and advanced questions to her students without missing a beat.
• Character Tics: She is always seen with her folded arms lifting her breasts up.
• Continuity Cameo: Makes one during "Operation Babe Hunt" event in both Persona 3 Portable and the second Persona 3 movie. As you would expect, Akihiko, Junpei, and the protagonist all try to get the hell out of dodge when she starts advancing on them.
• Everyone Has Standards: On the receiving end of this trope. Even perverts like Junpei and Teddie want nothing to do with Kashiwagi.
• Expy: She could easily be mistaken for a parallel universe equivalent of Mitsuka-sensei.
• Fan Disservice: She acts in a very flirtatious manner, and her portrait is designed to place emphasis on her breasts. This is less to make her come off as sexually appealing, and more to highlight her true nature as a pathetic womanchild.
• Hot Teacher: Her character's portrait isn't unattractive, but her personality and desperation for male attention completely diminish any beauty she has.
• Hypocritical Humor: She calls Rise an "inexperienced jailbait" despite the fact that she's probably worse than Shadow Rise in terms of personality, whereas Rise is an experienced model with a pleasant personality.
• Informed Deformity: It's suggested that she wears heavy makeup to look younger, which the player can't make out on her portrait, and is actually quite old looking.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Hanako Ohtani, who's a teenager.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's not terribly nice. For instance, in her first appearance, she calls Rise "jailbait". Some of her dialogue in Golden also show a softer side to her, given that she tells Yu that she's actually quite proud of how well he and the rest of her students are doing on their exams, and she subsequently pushes him to do better.
• Older Than They Look: Implied that she's considerably older than she looks and acts.
• Sensei-chan: Deconstructed. Her immaturity is not treated an endearing characteristic and is seen by the students as a desperate act to act young.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Is earnestly shocked when she loses the beauty pageant, despite being regarded as a creepy old hag by her students. No wonder she and Hanako get along well.
• Sucksessor: The class considers her this compared to Morooka (which is impressive, considering the latter was a supreme Jerkass).
• Teacher/Student Romance: Deconstructed and Played for Laughs. While this leads to a hilarious scene after the beauty pageant, her single status left her so bitter and desperate for attention from males she's willing to settle for anything she can get. Some of Kanji's nighttime dialogue seems to imply that she finds him attractive, although he doesn't get it.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Most of the clothes she rewards the player with are ones she considered too risque for her to wear.
• Unknown Rival: Considers herself Rise's rival as school idol. Boy, does she underestimate Rise's popularity (and kindness).
• Villainous Breakdown: She changes the rules to the culture festival so that if you're entered in a contest, even by someone else, you can't back out of it. This is made worse due to the fact that the school would likely expel students for absence, and she does in fact try to convince Chie, Yukiko, Rise, and Naoto to back out of the contest after Yosuke signs them up. She loses it when not only does Naoto back out for part of the contest, without penalty, but still manages to win.

Aika Nakamura

Aika Nakamura

Aiya's delivery girl.

Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (Japanese) and Cassandra Lee Morris (English)

Appearing only in Persona 4: The Animation, she is a minor recurring character who attends Yasogami High and works at her family's restaurant Aiya as a waitress and delivery girl. Aika has quite the ability to appear out of nowhere just to deliver fresh food to her customers without saying much of a word.

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• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Part of her charm is her ability to deliver Chinese food literally anywhere, including to people running for their lives and people who had just suffered really nasty stomachaches by something close to food poisoning away from the city. She also makes an appearance in the Hagakure near the end of Episode 15, citing that she's been working there during the trip for temporary training.
• Canon Foreigner: She neither appears nor is mentioned in the original version of Persona 4, having been created specifically for the anime.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • She eventually made into the main game continuity in Persona 4: Arena, where she's mentioned by name during Chie's storyline.
  • She's also mentioned several times in Golden after eating at Aiya, usually as a mention that Yu just missed her.
• Comfort Food: In episode 22 Aika offers Yu the infamous Mega Beef Bowl to cheer him up after Nanako's "death". Yu eats it all. It also doubles as a Continuity Nod as he had also maxed out the stats necessary to complete it by that point.
• Dissonant Serenity: The Investigation Team might be running from an enraged Kanji, but she remains oddly calm and professional whilst driving a scooter and delivering food.
• Emotionless Girl: The other part of her charm: the number of things that faze her is inversely proportional to the number of places to where she can deliver food.
• Stealth Mentor: In episode 11, the Investigation Team meets up in the restaurant she works in when they think they are back at square one because Morooka turned up dead even though he wasn't on the Midnight Channel. She then suddenly gives them a Mega Beef Bowl each for free that they eat for 40 minutes without getting to the rice. They're about to give up when they realize they can get to the bottom of it if they persevere.
  • Then she charges them 3000 yen each (another Continuity Nod: fail the Mega Beef Bowl challenge and you have to pay).
• The Stoic: Even more so than Yu, where she nonchalantly delivers food to Chie while being chased by Kanji.
• Unstoppable Mailman: Well, delivery girl. Not even being chased away from the original ordering spot will stop her from making a delivery.

Igor

Igor

See Persona: Recurring.

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