Characters / Persona 5: Palace Rulers

Persona 5 Main Character Index
The Phantom Thieves of Hearts (Starting Members [Joker] | Later Members [Goro Akechi | Kasumi Yoshizawa])
Confidants (Sae Niijima) | Targets - Palace Rulers / Endgame Antagonists (The Dreamer) / Minor | Other Characters
Spin-Offs: Strikers (Jail Monarchs) | Tactica | The Phantom X

The major antagonists of Persona 5.

Be aware that there will be spoilers for the game, marked and unmarked.

Asmodeus (Suguru Kamoshida)

Suguru Kamoshida

^{Shadow Kamoshida}

^{Asmodeus Transformation}

Bastard King of Lust

"This is MY castle- a place in which I can do whatever I want. Everyone wishes to be loved by me. ...That is, everyone besides slow-witted thieves like you."

Sin: Luxuria (Lust)
Shadow: Asmodeus
Voiced by: Yūji Mitsuya (JP), D.C. Douglas (EN)
Stage actors: Shun Takagi (The Stage)

The first major target, Kamoshida is the gym teacher at Shujin Academy who is also a former Olympic volleyball gold medalist. He has been using his position to sabotage other sports teams at Shujin to make the volleyball team he coaches appear to be the school's sole pride and joy. His warped sexual lust for the volleyball team's female members - and, more so, Ann Takamaki, as well as his lust for total domination towards his male athletes creates a Palace in the collective unconscious where he takes the form of Asmodeus, the demon of Lust.

His Palace resembles a Medieval castle, and it is based in Shujin Academy in the real world. In his Palace his Treasure resembles a massive bejeweled crown, while in the real world, it is a gold medal he won in the Olympics.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: While he isn't a horrible looking guy, the live action stage adaptation makes him more attractive, with a more Bishōnen appearance thanks to him being portrayed by Shun Takagi.
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • In the manga, he's a bit more Faux Affably Evil than in the game. He offers to give Akira and Ryuji "the same tough love (he) give(s his) team," (i.e. physical abuse) instead of merely threatening them with expulsion when they ask around about him. The manga also adds a scene when he talks with Shiho about her declining performance, and gives her a way to keep her starting spot, before sexually assaulting her.
  • The anime has him lay into Ren and Ryuji for being late near the start of Episode 2. By comparison, in the game, he came off as outwardly pleasant (albeit making a taunting reference to Ryuji's past as a track team member), and only turns stern when he reminds the protagonist about his precarious position as a person on probation.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Believe it or not, Royal makes him, or at least his Shadow, even worse than in the original game. During his boss fight, he summons cognitive versions of Mishima and Shiho as his slaves. If cognitive Shiho gets destroyed or even if he's struck himself when it's on the field, Shadow Kamoshida dismisses her as useless and even plans on having "special lessons" with her. It reinforces that he shows absolutely no remorse for what the real Kamoshida did to Shiho.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: His response when Ann refuses to sleep with him is to threaten to drop Shiho from her starter position.
• Animal Motifs: Rams. He has statues of ram's heads all across his Palace which act as switches, and his boss form has curved ram horns on his head. This represents Kamoshida's desire for power and sex (as rams are symbols of power and virility), as well as how Kamoshida likes to "butt heads" with people.
• Asshole Victim: Discussed. After sexually assaulting Shiho in a way that made her attempt suicide, Ryuji decides that Kamoshida has to have his heart changed, even if it means that Kamoshida might die.
• Arch-Enemy: He is mutually longtime archenemies with Ryuji, with every confrontation between them hinging on erupting into violence. He also becomes a sworn archenemy to Ann after he sexually assaulted and (heavily implied to have) raped Shiho, her best friend.
• Aroused by Idiocy: Played for Horror; his cognitions of Ann and Shiho are nothing but mindless bimbos that exist solely to satisfy his urges.
• Attention Whore: Kamoshida wants to be the only reason Shujin Academy is on the map. When the Track Team was doing well, he provoked Ryuji into hitting him, broke his leg, and then got the Track Team disbanded. When Joker is admitted to Shujin, Kamoshida complains to Kawakami that the new delinquent transfer student would take attention away from his achievements.
• Bait the Dog: An early scene has him offering a ride to Ann and Joker when it starts raining, urging them to not be late for school. Soon enough, however, it becomes clear how uncomfortable Ann is around him and what he thinks of the students he's supposed to be taking care of: slaves for the boys and sex dolls for the girls.
• Beyond Redemption: Played with. When they find out stealing Kamoshida's heart may kill him if done incorrectly, Ryuji, and possibly Joker, are reluctant to go through with it, despite everything Kamoshida did to the students of Shujin Academy. When Shiho tries to kill herself in a desperate attempt to get away from Kamoshida, the Phantom Thieves no longer care whether or not Kamoshida dies; they just want him gone.
  Ryuji: We can't waste any time! We gotta go to that other world and beat the shit out of that asshole! [...] Someone almost died because of him! I don't give a rat's ass what happens to him anymore!
• Bishie Sparkle: He is seen in this light during the volleyball rally right before one of his spikes meets Mishima's face. It emphasizes how he's seen as the star of the school in spite of his true nature.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Combined with Faux Affably Evil. In front of authority figures like Principal Kobayakawa and one of the counselors, he tries to be polite and easygoing while still sounding arrogant. Once he's alone with the protagonists, he shows his more threatening nature.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: You can weaken him by sending someone to steal his crown, but if you send Ann, he will immediately notice her, and the plan will fail.
• Break Him By Talking: His Shadow does this to Ryuji, accusing him of being responsible for the track team's downfall, and saying that the protagonist and Morgana will die because they sided with "trash" like him. Ryuji briefly goes into a Heroic BSoD, but fortunately, snaps out in time to awaken his Persona and save the rest of the party. He later does the same thing to Ann, claiming that what he did to Shiho, and thus Shiho's suicide attempt were all because of Ann refusing his advances, which also ends in Ann awakening her Persona.
• Broken Ace: He was once a beloved Olympic athlete who brought home a gold medal for Japan in volleyball, but he's since become a selfish bastard obsessed with keeping his status and reputation. His Treasure takes the real-life form of his Olympic gold medal as the source of all his twisted desires.
• The Bully: All in all, he's nothing but one, albeit one that's far worse than any of the other bullies in Shujin. He physically abuses his students through brutal training regiments, while frequently extorting sexual favours from his female ones via Mishima.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Deconstructed and Played for Drama. Despite being a legendarily demanding and inflexible volleyball coach, he actually gets results. He took Shujin to the volleyball nationals and his recommendations can guarantee scholarships. Ann discusses in her Confidant that Kamoshida would not put Shiho in the starting position just because of his personal lust but also recognized Shiho's skills. The only exception seems to be Mishima, who Kamoshida knows is terrible but keeps him around due to his skills with technology and to be his messenger. Kamoshida's results are the only reason the school and parents would tolerate his "quirk" of physically abusing and sexually assaulting the students.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In the vanilla release his Shadow never refers to Shiho, the girl who attempted suicide because of him, by name, and doesn't seem to remember her as anything more than another victim. Disturbingly subverted in Royal; his Palace now has a cognitive Shiho in a revealing bunny outfit with high vulnerability to physical attacks, indicating he remembers her and exactly what he did very well. The echoes from his Will Seeds also illustrate he fully remembers her by name and lusts after her body.
• Call-Back:
  • Kamoshida is one to Persona 2's Ginji Sazaki. Both were once talented celebrities who end up in less prestigious jobs, and were desperate to reclaim their former glory. Both Sazaki and Kamoshida also gained notoriety for their sexual advances on their female students, particularly on one who is of mixed heritage. The difference is that Ginji is relevant to the Big Bad's Evil Plan, while Kamoshida is just a slimy jerkass without much of a big impact to the grand scheme of things bar forcing his victims to form the Phantom Thieves to deal with him.
  • His Palace is this to Yukiko's Castle. Not counting the Shopping District, both games have a castle with the Lust theme prevalent as their first dungeon.
• The Casanova: While more focus is placed on the Sexual Extortion, sexual harassment, and heavily implied rape, he's also fairly popular with female students who haven't heard or don't believe the rumors about him. Given the wariness of some of the girls who have an inkling of what he's really like, it's implied he isn't too picky when it comes to his students.
• Cool Crown: His Shadow has a simple gold crown, and his Treasure takes the form of a much larger and more ornate crown, which he wears after transforming into Asmodeus.
• Creepy Gym Coach: He has sexually harassed the female students on the volleyball team and is forcing Ann to go out with him to keep Shiho on the team. He rapes Shiho when Ann refuses to sleep with him, and it's implied that Shiho isn't the first person he molested.
• Cruel Mercy: Ann spares his shadow not out of the kindness of her heart, but that it would be a more befitting punishment for him to face the consequences of his actions. With his crimes outed to the public, the glory and fame that he had long sought for will vanish.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Justified: the students are intimidated into silence while the authorities either don't care or are willing to go along with his misdeeds for the sake of profit. It's also heavily implied that when Kamoshida abuses students in the PE office, everyone near the PE faculty office can hear them make weird noises, such as screaming.
• Dirty Coward: For all his high and mighty talk, his Shadow is pretty cowardly, leaving all the fighting to his Guards. When Joker and Ann first awaken their Personas, he quickly gets cold feet and scurries away with his tail between his legs. The only reason why he still acts smug when Ryuji awakens his Persona is that Shadow Kamoshida still has plenty of Guards by his side. Once he's finally defeated, he makes a futile attempt to escape and then pathetically begs for his life before finally coming to terms with the position he's in.
• Dirty Old Man: Played for Drama. He's a middle-aged ex-athlete with an unhealthy fixation with female high school-aged students, particularly the girls who are on the volleyball team he coaches, and the visibly "exotic"-looking Ann Takamaki. The students who are in the loop about his true nature are repulsed by him, and the only reason he was able to get Ann into his clutches in the first place was because he promised Ann's friend Shiho a spot on the team for a national tournament if Ann accepted his advances. This fixation manifests in his Palace in several ways: his sexed-up, pink-skinned cognitions of the volleyball team, the gigantic female torso pillars that serve as decor, and his bikini-clad cognition of Ann, who, unlike the real Ann, is completely subservient to him on top of being shallow and ditzy.
• Disproportionate Retribution: His Shadow has Joker and Ryuji captured and plans to execute them both just because they walked into his Palace. Later on, his real world self threatens to have Joker, Ryuji, and Mishima all expelled for confronting him about Shiho's attempted suicide. What makes this worse is that Joker actually stops Ryuji from attacking him, yet all it does is earn him the risk of being expelled. Even Mishima, who went to stop Ryuji, is lumped into it, even though he had taken Kamoshida's abuse and not said anything to worsen the situation. Joker and Mishima were just collateral to him. Even worse, the whole faculty knows that expelling Joker violates his probation terms, meaning that Kamoshida is knowingly getting him unfairly thrown into juvie. In the manga, Kamoshida instead plans to have Akira and Ryuji expelled for supposedly bullying Shiho into committing suicide, intending to use them as scapegoats for the incident, but it's made clear that his motivation is one and the same as he had in the game.
• Don't Explain the Joke: When he uses his Last Ditch Move, Gold Medal Spike:
  Kamoshida: Time for my killshot from when I was active and rockin' it! Killshot... as in I'll make the kill!
• Driven to Suicide: Subverted. During his confession at the school assembly, Kamoshida feels so guilty that he says that he will kill himself to atone. He is talked down into turning himself in by Ann, who insists that suicide would be running away from his guilt.
• Dumb Jock: Kamoshida is basically an evil adult version of this. Though he has enough social skills to appear normal and he has bent the school system to his whim, a lot of the upper brass are aware he's a predator and protect him for their benefit. A lot of his actions also lack foresight and he does cruel acts simply because he can. His general lack of intelligence is very notable when compared to the next target, Madarame, who is capable of convincingly acting like a kind teacher.
• Entitled Bastard: Because of his past success as an Olympic-level athlete, Kamoshida believes that the school ought to reward him for that, regardless of what he does.
• Ephebophile: A truly disturbing one at that as Ann would happily attest, given he is a high school teacher and never shows or indicates this sort of interest in any women his actual age in game. The only hint of any other interest is in an unused Will Seed flashback in Royal where he sexually harassed (or assaulted) a female TV anchor.
• Establishing Character Moment: Even before we find out the full extent of his abuses, Kamoshida's first appearance has him casually gloating to Kawakami that his volleyball team is the only thing putting the school on the map, which she agrees with (the fact that his boasting is rather understated also demonstrates just how easily he's able to hide his scummier nature). His Shadow's first impression is even worse: when we first see him, he immediately orders the Protagonist and Ryuji executed just for intruding in his castle.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Kamoshida sometimes likes to crack jokes or make light humor in instances where he isn't being a sociopathic Jerkass. It only serves to upset people when it isn't simply ignored.
• Evil Is Petty: He encourages students to spread rumors about Joker simply because he's a "delinquent" with no business ruining the school's reputation that he built with his volleyball team. The rumors start the day that Joker gets to school, indicating that Mishima spread them early, or that Kamoshida told him to do it even before Joker reached Shujin Academy. Kamoshida also broke Ryuji's leg to ensure that his volleyball club would be the only one to win the school awards.
• Evil Gloating: If Joker talks to him in Shujin's halls before stealing his Treasure, Kamoshida will taunt him about his inevitable expulsion. Interestingly, however, if Joker constantly tries to converse with Kamoshida, he grows more and more paranoid and irritable, genuinely fearful of what Joker could be plotting to be so nonchalant over his impending fate.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He's a slimy, repugnant Jerkass with a fairly deep voice. Averted in the Japanese version, since Yūji Mitsuya's voice is more naturally high-pitched.
• Evil Teacher: He beats the volleyball team and sexually harasses the female students because he believes that he's entitled to do so as the "king" of Shujin, and is heavily implied to have raped multiple female athletes, and we only get to know one such victim because her friend refused to sleep with him.
• Failed a Spot Check: Kamoshida fights the party when they only have 4 members and all of them except Morgana are people he knows in real life. Despite this, he will not notice if Ryuji or Morgana go missing to go for his crown as long as the rest of the party are attacking him. He will eventually notice someone is missing but it's too late.
  Shadow Kamoshida: Is there one less of you? I knew it! They're missing. Where'd they go!?
• Fan Disservice: Shadow Kamoshida's outfit consists of a robe, a crown and a pink speedo meant to look unflattering.
• Fate Worse than Death: Ann considers sparing him to be this, as he will have to admit to his crimes and atone for the rest of his life for what he has done to his students.
• Faux Affably Evil: Even when he’s putting on a facade of kindness, he still comes across as smug and egotistical and makes thinly veiled threats. This aspect of him is played up in the manga adaptation, when he cheerfully offers to help Ren and Ryuji straighten out by treating them the same way as his team, as opposed to sternly warning them that they'll be kicked out if they don't shape up.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: During the last phase of his battle, you're given the option to send someone to stealthily steal Kamoshida's crown while everyone else is distracting him. Ann, being the object of Kamoshida's lust, is not the person to send, and she even subtly warns you if you try to select her. Selecting her will result in Kamoshida noticing Ann almost immediately which gets Ann to run back to the battlefield and note that she should stay.
  Shadow Kamoshida: Where do you think you're going Takamaki? You and that damn fine bod of yours!
• A Glass of Chianti: In his boss battle, one of Kamoshida's hands is holding a large glass of red wine with the Ann copy floating in the drink like a tooth pick. Kamoshida can drink from the glass and slobber over the Ann copy before spitting her back into the glass to get a boost to his offenses.
• Glory Days: From Olympic medalist to high school PE teacher. This perhaps explains, without excusing, the worst aspects of his personality.
• Glory Hound: He will do anything to keep the spotlight on himself. This is shown when his Shadow admits to maiming Ryuji in an incident he orchestrated to get the track team disbanded solely so he could have more prestige showered upon his own volleyball team.
• Graceful Loser: Zigzagged. His Shadow, upon defeat, frantically pleads for mercy but completely concedes defeat not long after and even clues the Phantom Thieves in on it being destroyed would mean the real Kamoshida would be Killed Off for Real. The Shadow fully prepares for death, but upon being spared by Ann, promises Kamoshida will reform before fading. Even during his moment of loss before undergoing his change of heart, part of himself did agree what he did was horrific. As Ann attempts to kill him he admits that Ann would be fully justified in ending his life. It’s meaningful since Shadows are parts of the human psyche that people do not want or keep hidden away. So, on some level, even before the change of heart, he did have a guilty conscience. Kamoshida, being the bastard he is, did his best to bury it in the deepest parts of himself.
• Gym Class Hell: A sadistic gym teacher who physically abuses his students. In his castle, this is shown as forcing the students to run on endless treadmills and shooting volleyballs at them out of a cannon.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Kamoshida might act chummy when it suits him, but it barely takes much to set him off when he drops the flimsy act. Best demonstrated in the optional conversations Joker can have with him in Shujin's halls during his Palace heist, where he voices being an inch away from beating Joker should the player choose dialogue taunting Kamoshida.
• Hate Sink: For a Starter Villain, he's one of the vilest and cruelest human characters in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise as a whole and is likely designed to be as blatantly unlikable as possible, just to make a point on how corrupt society really is. He commits everything from physical abuse to implied rape, getting the entire track team disbanded because Ryuji hit him after egging him on to do it, and drove Shiho to her Bungled Suicide after presumably raping her off-screen while either not caring about it or even wanting to sexually abuse her even more. Absolutely nobody involved with him in the school wants him to be even around the school save for the principal (including Makoto who wasn't actually involved in his case), they were just scared of him beating the shit out of them or the principal tarnishing their records. Very few villains in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise or its relatives are this straight-up evil, and he's literally just a completely mundane gym coach committing perfectly realistic crimes as opposed to the gods, demons and forces of evil frequently seen there.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After the Phantom Thieves defeat his Shadow and steal his treasure, his shadow is so distraught that it tries to commit suicide by jumping from a ledge, much like how he drove Shiho to attempt suicide by jumping off the school roof. The Thieves stop him from doing it and refused to kill him themselves, preferring him to suffer Cruel Mercy. Later, his real-world self also threatens to commit suicide to atone for his actions, and Ann again talks him down from it.
• Hot for Student: He has a rather lustful attraction towards Ann, and is also very fixated on the girls' volleyball team that he coaches. Unlike with Kashiwagi in the previous game, this time it's very much Played for Drama.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: He acts like a big shot and that he's the true leader of the campus, but the minute anyone shows up the Volleyball Club or stands up to him, he will retaliate to salvage that pride. His Shadow inadvertently admits that he doesn't think he's worth anything if he doesn't win, and keep winning. To this end, his treasure is the Olympic gold medal he won.
• It's Personal: He manages to earn the personal ire of all four of the founding Thieves: he lusts after Ann and drove her friend to attempt suicide, broke Ryuji's leg back when he was a track star, told everyone to spread rumors about the Protagonist both because he stood up to him and because he wanted to, and his Shadow would have executed Morgana had the Protagonist and Ryuji not intervened.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Blackmails Ann into accepting his advances under threat of removing Shiho from the volleyball team, and then assaults her out of spite when Ann refuses to sleep with him.
• Jaded Washout: He was once a beloved Olympic medalist, but is now a simple volleyball coach who's trying to cling onto whatever glory he has left. This consequently moulded the Entitled Bastard mentality that drives the terrible things that he had done.
• Jerkass: Kamoshida is so repulsive that even when putting on the charm, he comes off as a smug and repugnant egomaniac. He also taunts Ryuji by smugly rubbing it in his face that Shiho has slim chances of surviving her suicide attempt and thus won’t be able to testify against him.
• Jerkass at Your Discretion: He acts upstanding when around authority figures, but acts threatening towards the volleyball team and anyone he doesn't like (the protagonist and Ryuji) when they're not around. However, it's revealed that the adults are already aware of his true nature and cover it up due to his reputation.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As repulsive and slimy as he is, he makes several unfortunately accurate points about certain subjects.
  • He points out that a lot of Ryuji's problems comes from his Hot-Blooded nature, an issue that comes up frequently throughout the story. Ryuji even cops to his Hair-Trigger Temper getting him into trouble at times. But Kamoshida deliberately exploits this problem to make Ryuji's life more miserable all out of pettiness. Ryuji admits that he was to blame for the track team getting shut down, and lets his former teammates punch him near the end of his Confidant.
  • The party doesn't argue when his Shadow points out that he wouldn't have been able to get away with nearly as much abuse at school if students, parents and school staff hadn't been willing to overlook it for the sake of their personal interest. It's the first of many ties into the game's overarching themes of rebelling against corrupt authority and of the apathy of Tokyo's citizens towards individual plights.
  • His reformed shadow in the Prison of Regression may still have the audacity to pretend to hit on Ann in front of the other Thieves, but there's no way he would actually do it anymore after everything that already happened to him, and likely agrees that the joke was in bad taste.
• Kick the Dog:
  • After he causes Shiho to attempt suicide he outright mocks her to Ryuji’s face after he confronts them. Then he tells Ryuji, Joker, and Mishima that he is expelling them out of spite.
  • Kamoshida's Shadow actually manages to do this even after being reformed. When the Thieves meet him down in the Prison of Regression, he halfheartedly hits on Ann before saying it was a joke. In all likelihood it was a joke, but Kamoshida's Shadow would have to be absolutely delusional to think they would find it even remotely funny as opposed to, you know, reacting with disgusted fury. Though with his current state, even he might have thought it wasn't that funny.
• Kubrick Stare: His Shadow's portrait is posed this way.
• Lack of Empathy: When Shiho attempts suicide and Kamoshida is confronted over it, his response is to sarcastically sneer to Ryuji she's unlikely to wake up again, totally cementing him as a remorseless scumbag. His cognition of Shiho in his Palace in Royal makes it even worse, illustrating he not only assuredly feels no remorse but would also torment her again if he could.
• Large and in Charge: While his official height isn't given, Kamoshida towers over everyone in the game. He has also twisted Shujin to cater to him at the expense of everyone else.
• Large Ham: His Shadow uses "Ore-sama" as a first-person pronoun in Japanese, which is extremely impolite and egotistical. It also speaks in a loud, flamboyant tone.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • After the boss fight against his Shadow, it ends up cornered near a balcony by a very angry Ann, possibly contemplating jumping off in order to avoid incineration by her Persona. Ann takes a moment to point out this is exactly how Shiho felt.
  • Similarly, after his heart is changed, his real world self promises to commit suicide, just like Shiho attempted after he assaulted her.
• Lecherous Licking: Shadow Kamoshida uses this as an attack with his Overly-Long Tongue. For extra doses of squick, it only targets Ann and deals high physical damage to her. That said, it can be used to your benefit. The Shadow will waste two turns staring at Ann to telegraph the attack and it can be prepared for via healing and having her guard.
• Lone Wolf Boss: He's one of the very few of the Phantom Thieves' targets who isn't a member, pawn, or victim of the Antisocial Force conspiracy, though he was protected by a member of it.
• Lust: His sin and motif. Not only is he obsessed with the female volleyball team he coaches, but he also has a Hot for Student complex towards Ann. Further, his out of control Shadow form is none other than Asmodeus, the demon of lust. His treasure in the real world turns out to be an Olympic medal, thus his lust was not only for his students but his glory days when he was somebody other than a High School PE teacher.
• Malicious Slander: His main tool in dealing with students who refuse to obey him. To do this, he browbeats a few students, such as Yuuki Mishima, to spread rumors of his own creation. After enough students believe those rumors, there would be few complaints at the school towards the expulsion of the targeted students.
• Manipulative Bastard: The only thing separating the real Kamoshida from his Shadow is that in the real world, Kamoshida is smart enough to put on a thin veneer of sincerity and feign an understanding attitude in public, which he uses to spread rumors about and lob veiled threats at anyone he doesn't like. However, it is strongly implied that even the authorities at school know what a rotten man he is underneath, and yet they do nothing about it because he contributes a great deal to the school's reputation as the trainer of their athletic teams.
• Medal of Dishonor: Morgana notes that the Olympic medal which was the basis of his Treasure will now likely be this to him post-change of heart.
• Mid-Life Crisis Car: Kamoshida drives a 2008 Toyota Crown S200 luxury sedan. It doubles as Viewers Are Motorheads piece of Foreshadowing of the form his Treasure will take.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Asmodeus has four arms and four legs.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Given he is an Olympic gold medalist, Kamoshida is the most blatantly muscular of all the Targets and Palace Rulers on top of being the tallest. With his tendency to use his build to torment others, it serves to make him the most outwardly menacing antagonist in the game.
• Mundanger: One of the things that make him so remarkable and horrific as a villain is how grounded he is in a series where every other villain is trying to obliterate or control humanity.
• Narcissist: And not very subtle about it either; his palace is filled to the brim with statues of his shadow self, with all the pompous self-image that it involves. Even his real world self obviously doesn't care if he hurts or overexerts his students as long as he can prove that he's the best at what he does, and is perfectly willing to ruin students' lives for challenging his ego, as evidenced by him breaking Ryuji's leg for challenging him, all while claiming self-defense to deny any responsibility for his actions.
• Never My Fault: Shadow Kamoshida claims as such during his boss fight, saying that his students came on to him. The party member tasked with taking his crown calls bullshit immediately. He also blames Mishima for spreading rumors about the protagonist, acting as though it was Mishima's own idea, and treats Ryuji punching him when he rightfully deserved it as Ryuji simply being petty.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • He shrinks the massive crown Treasure to a realistic size, making stealing it easier. Otherwise, the Phantom Thieves would've likely died trying to lug a huge crown out of a crumbling castle.
  • During his battle in Royal, he yells at Cognitive Mishima and Shiho (if you target and damage Kamoshida instead of her) and drives them away. This ends up depriving him of his most dangerous attacks upon realizing that he's out of slaves to serve him volleyballs.
• Nightmare Face: He outwardly appears much more twisted in the anime, and is prone to these when he gets upset. His shadow also has a few of the more disturbing expressions in the game.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Has a fair bit in common with the Olympic gold medalist Masato Uchishiba, although Kamoshida won his medal in volleyball rather than judo and coaches a high school team instead of a college one. Still, both are Japanese gold medal-winning Olympic athletes turned coaches who engaged in sexual harassment and (most likely) rape.
• No Cure for Evil: Subverted at first. Asmodeus can perform Libido Boost during the fight to eat one of the bodies in his trophy for an instant Diarahan. He will keep doing it as long as that trophy remains, so breaking the trophy to stop this should be top priority.
• "Not So Different" Remark: After being defeated, his Shadow claims that his obsession with being seen as the best stems from the expectations people placed upon him after his Olympic victory — much like how the protagonists are driven by the expectations of society. Ann quickly puts him in his place for even comparing himself to them.
• Not Worth Killing: Following his defeat, Shadow Kamoshida attempts to commit suicide and later demands Ann to kill him for his atrocities. Ann, however, denies him this as he will not atone for his sins if he dies.
• Oh, Crap!: His Shadow shows demonstrable fear in three instances.
  • During the Protagonist's awakening, he is clearly freaked out in the animated sequence, but he quickly regains his composure and orders his guards to kill the protag and Arsène. He remains more composed when Ryuji awakens later.
  • When Ann awakens, he is clearly afraid, and remains so after the fight with Belphegor, his only line of dialogue being a panicked "Oh shit..."
  • When he loses in direct combat, he grabs the crown and runs, only to find he's running towards the balcony with the Thieves bearing down on him.
  • In The Animation, Kamoshida hits Ren's face with a volleyball, prompting Ren to give him a Death Glare that startles Kamoshida briefly.
  • In the manga, he privately loses his composure over Shiho's suicide attempt, at least before he gets the idea to falsely accuse Akira and Ryuji of bullying Shiho and making them into scapegoats. It's the most upset he gets before his change of heart.
    Kamoshida: [pounds his fist on his desk] That bitch actually jumped?! Ugh, this is going to be such a pain to smooth over.
• Overly-Long Tongue: His form during the boss battle has a saliva-coated tongue as long as his entire body, adding to his sleazy image and capable of attacking with it.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: His Shadow begs this of Ann after his defeat. She instead gives a Restrained Revenge, saying he needs to pay for his crimes rather than run from them.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Kamoshida, from his petulant attitude and immature sexual cravings, can best be summarized as a twisted Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up no longer having long-term goals or ambitions other than lording over a high school like a crude jock. The way he kisses up to the teaching staff of Shujin for praise even resembles a snobby child craving attention for good work. Ryuji even calls him a "bitter, immature manchild" in the localization of the manga, and Ann later uses the same term on him.
• Pose of Supplication: After getting his treasure stolen, on the day where Joker is supposedly expelled, he goes down on his knees while apologizing for his misdeeds in front of the principal and student body during the school assembly.
• Puzzle Boss: In two phases. Firstly you need to destroy his trophy to stop him from healing, then you need to send one party member to sneak up on him and knock off his crown. During the second, you need to keep him distracted with your main party until this member is able to get into position. It takes time, but once his crown is off his defense is reduced so drastically he won't last much longer. Both of these must be completed to beat him - using an overpowered Persona like Raoul to tear through his health will just result in him either healing (if the trophy hasn't been destroyed) or surviving with 1 HP (if the crown hasn't been knocked off).
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He's among the most iconic villains in the game not just because he's the first major boss, but also due to the nature of his crimes. He sexually harasses and even rapes students offscreen who can do next to nothing to defend themselves while being protected by a system meant to keep the students safe and not him. This makes him a deeply hateful figure and the main cast seems to hate him more than pretty much any other target bar Shido despite being just a completely mundane gym coach, and you'll be hard-pressed to find another villain in the Megami Tensei franchise itself, god, demon or human, who takes rape to such a heinous level, if they are even interested in committing it in the first place.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Yes, his heart gets changed, but he's still enough of a jerk afterward to make a sex joke towards Ann when the party encounters his Shadow within the depths of Mementos.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: Shadow Kamoshida bothers with the crown and cape, wearing nothing besides his boxers underneath it to further emphasize that he is a pervert.
• Revenge by Proxy: When Ann refuses to have sex with him, Kamoshida targets her friend Shiho out of frustration instead and sexually assaults her (while also being implied that he raped her) driving her to suicide in a desperate attempt to get away from him.
• Sadist: In the real world, he seemingly takes his time enjoying spiking volleyballs directly at the other participants in the volleyball rally and in front of a sizable audience, leaving many of them in bandages. The way his "training" is presented in his Palace shows that he gets a kick out of hurting students and he also orders the guards to take their time beating up the protagonists rather than simply killing them immediately.
• Sadist Teacher: He pretends that his volleyball coaching is nothing but tough love, but not only is it much more brutal than is publicly known, the pain and suffering it causes are inflicted purely for his own self satisfaction. It doesn't need to be anywhere near as harsh as it is, but because the team still performs well nobody cares.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: As Mishima explains to Ryuji and the Protagonist, Kamoshida is able to get away with his abuses because he is being protected by the Principal. He is also highly influential in the PTA and his words alone will be able to get any students he dislikes expelled.
• Serial Rapist: Implied. In one of the conversations you can eavesdrop on the way to Shujin early on, a female student can be heard telling another about "screams and other weird noises coming out from the P.E. Faculty Office", suggesting whatever happened to Shiho is no one-off case, but the one where he's pulled out of the rug.
• Sex for Services: He tries to justify his actions by claiming that his victims came to him in order to curry his favor. No one buys it for a second.
• Sexual Extortion: He makes Ann act friendly and polite to him because he likes how she looks, threatening to remove her friend, Shiho, from the team if Ann doesn't comply. Kamoshida eventually tells Ann to come to his place after school, which Ann correctly guesses to be Kamoshida wanting to have sex with her. When Ann refuses, it's heavily implied that Kamoshida rapes Shiho in Ann's stead, resulting in Shiho being Driven to Suicide.
• Sinister Schnoz: Compared to most other characters his nose is rather large, particular the character portraits used when he drops his facade and menaces people, and his shadow's portrait. It's the only hint to his true nature among his otherwise plain appearance. His nose is even more pronounced in the Stylistic Suck drawings that pop up when Morgana explains how stealing a treasure works.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: His treatment of his male students manifests as slaves in his palace; he has their information in a "Slave Book", and he has four lackeys in his boss fight adorned with balls and chains.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Played With. His Olympic gold medalist status means that he is highly valuable to Shujin Academy and students who received his college recommendations could get instant admission to the college of their choice. However, as an athlete he is largely forgotten by Japan and when his crimes were made public, most people felt that he was some no-name has been who should have just kept his head down.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He's the first target of the Phantom Thieves and one of the few targets to have no connection to the Antisocial Force. That said his change of heart is what sets the game's plot in motion. It turns out that the principal did not report him to the police since it would draw too much media attention towards Shujin and harm Shido's chances at being elected. In fact because of his change of heart, the principal is one of the first people who catches on to the existence of the Phantom Thieves thanks to his ties to the conspiracy, leading him to manipulate Makoto into getting dirt on them which eventually leads to some of the plot points later on. Additionally in Royal, Dr. Maruki was hired by the school to help all the students with the trauma that he inflicted, which leads to him finishing his paper, strengthening his resolve, and eventually awakening his persona.
• The Sociopath: A sadistic, entitled narcissist that shows absolutely no remorse for his actions and revels in tormenting teenagers. Based on his subconscious, even if his cognitions of others look human, they are all just his obedient slaves and his obsession with Ann is also only based on her appearance; he doesn't actually see her anything other than a sex slave for him to play with. What really cements Kamoshida as this trope, however, is when after brutally violating Shiho and knowing it drove her to a Bungled Suicide attempt, he mockingly expresses to Ryuji that since Shiho is unlikely to awaken from her coma, she will be unable to say anything about him.
• Spanner in the Works: He turns out to be this for the Antisocial Force. Despite having no direct connection to it, his conflicts with Joker and Ryuji cause them to discover his palace, meet Morgana and form the Phantom Thieves - had he simply left them alone, the conspiracy might not have had to deal with the Thieves at all.
• Starter Villain: He's the first antagonist the Thieves take on. He also fills many of the tropes in this regard, being of low personal status (a gym teacher) and having a personal connection to the first two friends the protagonist makes. He is also the only target bar Futaba to have absolutely no direct connection to Masayoshi Shido or the Antisocial Force conspiracy.^noteBear in mind that Kamoshida himself is enabled by the principal who is a member of said conspiracy, Sae was being brought under the conspiracy's thumb against her will, and she manages to break free during the Good Ending route, Madarame and Kaneshiro's connections to the conspiracy are flimsy at most, and their targeting were completely unrelated to the conspiracy at that point. Additionally, while Futaba doesn't have a direct connection to Shido, her mother is a completely different story as the Phantom Thieves start looking into the conspiracy after they found out about how she died. His manipulation of the school could also be seen as a smaller-scale version of what Yaldabaoth was doing to the entire city in that the students were doing nothing to change their lives, despite being "prisoners", for the sake of social harmony, just like the people of Tokyo.
• Start of Darkness: In the unused Will Seed flashbacks, he apparently got fresh with a female reporter while drunk, and was actually horrified by it. He not only begged forgiveness, but planned to turn himself into the police. One of his corporate sponsors however, helped cover it up and assured Kamoshida all was forgiven. This eventually lead Kamoshida into thinking less about the consequences of his actions and becoming the Entitled Bastard he is today.
• Streisand Effect: In-Universe: When Shadow Kamoshida's trophy gets damaged, he tells the Thieves to stop attacking it. Morgana lampshades this.
  Morgana: When someone tells us not to do something, it makes us want to do it even more!
• Stripperific:
  • Shadow Kamoshida only wears four articles of clothing; his crown, a pair of shoes, his mantle, and a speedo.
  • Disturbingly, this also applies to the cognitions of his female students in his palace.
• Stupid Evil:
  • He immediately starts sabotaging Principal Kobayakawa's plan to "rehabilitate" the delinquent transfer student, Joker, by antagonizing him. Kamoshida essentially causes trouble for the main authority covering up his abuses because he felt threatened by someone else getting any sort of attention. Kobayakawa goes along with it but is not happy about it.
  • He molests Shiho offscreen because he's angry that Ann rejected him. Doing so quickly threatens to expose his scandals to the public after Shiho makes a very visible suicide attempt, and it convinces Ann to do anything to stop him.
  • He tells Joker, Ryuji, and Mishima that he will be getting them expelled and exactly when he's going to do it, which is at the next board meeting. Unlike the other Targets where their deadlines are learned from other sources ^noteMadarame's was learned from Yusuke overhearing him talk to a lawyer, Okumura's is learned when he tells Haru the day she will be sold off, Sae's is learned from Akechi who works with her, and Shido's deadline was self-imposed by the team based on the news, so he would not become Prime Minister. or the Target tells the Thieves because they want something from them ^noteKaneshiro was trying to extort the Thieves, Futaba wanted her heart changed to stop feeling so suicidal, and Maruki wanted the Thieves' consent to enact his perfect world, Kamoshida reveals his deadline to the party without any material benefit to himself; he did it just to gloat. This gives the Thieves plenty of time to steal his desires without having to do any more investigative legwork in the real world. In all fairness he was unaware of their ability to change his heart, though the fact that he acts afraid of Joker afterwards suggests Kamoshida suspected they were planning to retaliate against him in some other way. It ends up putting him in a foul mood for the entire period until he gets his change of heart.
• Training from Hell: Kamoshida's training methods are extreme, to say the least. And by "extreme", we mean "borderline criminal", especially if you count what happened to Ryuji. It's Flanderized in Kamoshida's Palace, where the cognitive entities emulating the track and volleyball teams are subjected to actual torture. Based on the type(s) of torture those cognitions are suffering, it's heavily implied that his "training regimen" consists of denying his athletes water even when they need it, beating them up if he felt that they are incompetent, as well as randomly and deliberately spiking volleyballs right onto them. As if Ryuji didn't have enough reasons to be angry with him already, the abuse Kamoshida puts his athletes through is shown in graphic detail.
• Ultimate Job Security: While a number of teachers do seem to have been in the dark about his abusive and corrupt side, the principal, PTA, and others absolutely knew and could have had him removed. They didn't simply because he made the school look good by being the coach for their high performing volleyball team. It's not until Kamoshida publicly confesses, resigns, and turns himself in that they become unable to cover it up.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Various confrontations with Kamoshida and Ryuji can have the protagonist taking the reasonable approach and talking Ryuji out of being goaded into doing something impulsive. Kamoshida only continues to antagonize him despite this. Justified as he was probably hoping Ryuji would attack him and give an excuse to expel them immediately, so having Ryuji calm down would be counterproductive to his plans. That being said, Kamoshida has enough sway to get the two of them expelled regardless.
• Villainous Breakdown: Asmodeus has one over the course of his boss fight as the party takes away his trophies, being shocked into dropping his guard after his trophy cup is destroyed, and having a Despair Event Horizon after his crown is taken. By the end of it, he doesn't even care if he lives or not.
• Villainous Legacy: His actions echo throughout the story; Makoto feels guilty about not being able to stop him, Ann likewise feels guilty about being unable to help Shiho, and The Conspiracy decides to off Kobayakawa when the tabloids find out about his role in covering up Kamoshida's abuses, just to give a few examples.
• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • Numerous female students early on are heard being vocally frustrated with Ann because they happen to like Kamoshida and accuse her of seducing him. When the truth comes out, they do feel remorse for their assumptions but the overall lasting sincerity is probably lacking.
  • He has a good reputation, but in private a lot of people were already entirely aware that he was an abusive scumbag. The problem is that they don't care so long as he stops shorting to causing so many problems that they can't cover it up anymore: He's genuinely good at what he does, so people ignore the actual human suffering when it makes the school look good.
• Viler New Villain: While the antagonists of Persona 4 are either tragic figures or have redeeming qualities, Kamoshida has none of those traits. Him being the Starter Villain sets the standards of how horrible the antagonists of this game will be. In actuality, even most of the later antagonists in Persona 5 bar Shido don't actually go as deranged or irredeemable as him. To say that he's one of the vilest human villains possible in a Shin Megami Tensei game or spinoff is actually an understatement.
• Vocal Dissonance: His voice is high-pitched in the Japanese version, despite his masculine looks.
• Warm-Up Boss: As the first major target, his Shadow serves to teach the player about how boss battles work. Namely, that brute force alone isn't enough to win, and you may have to send one of your party members away to get an advantage, forcing you to think about party lineups. At the same time, Kamoshida can't hit any of the four party members' weaknesses, even factoring in that Joker can switch Personas. And once the game is confident that you've got the hang of it, he goes down pretty easily.
• Would Hit a Girl: He physically abuses and sexually assaults several of the female players. Just ask poor Shiho. In The Animation, we actually see him assault her.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: He agreed to temporarily coach the successful track team while secretly planning to shut it down. Knowing that Ryuji has a bad temper, he first upset the entire team by putting them through nonsensical and overly harsh training, before singling Ryuji out and goading him until he got fed up and threw a punch. Kamoshida immediately broke his leg and then disbanded the track team in response.
• Your Size May Vary: He can go from towering over Joker to being outright shorter than him and barely taller than Kasumi.

Azazel (Ichiryuusai Madarame)

Ichiryuusai Madarame

^{Shadow Madarame}

^{Azazel Transformation}

False Curator of Vanity

"I make the rules of the art scene! I am the supreme being! I AM THE GOD OF THE ART WORLD!"

Sin: Irritum (Vanity)
Shadow: Azazel
Voiced by: Yukitoshi Hori (JP), Kyle Hebert (EN)
Stage actors: Jun Takamatsu (The Stage)

The second major target. He is a famous Japanese painter who adopted Yusuke Kitagawa when Yusuke's parents died. While he used to be a brilliant artist, he developed an artist's block and resorted to adopting disciples and stealing their work to prop up his own fame. He exhibits a total disregard for his students' welfare and self-esteem, and even drove a few to suicide; one of his disciples was Yusuke's late mother, and Madarame allowed her to die solely to be able to claim her work as his own. Madarame's unwillingness to create his own work and his desire for fame combine to create a Palace inside the collective unconscious where he takes the form of Azazel, the demon of Vanity.

Madarame's Palace resembles a massive, gaudy art museum, and it is based in the run-down atelier where he raised Yusuke and many of his other pupils in the real world. In his Palace his Treasure resembles a painting, which is revealed to be the original, unedited Sayuri portrait. The painting in question is what the Treasure manifests as in the real world.

---

• Abusive Parents: Despite having adopted Yusuke, he exploits the hell out of him, barely furnishing him while leeching off his talent. However, he treats Yusuke with enough kindness to earn his deep respect until the full extent of his corruption is revealed, and Sojiro wonders whether Madarame actually cared for Yusuke to some extent. Yusuke's confidant reveals that he did in fact genuinely care for Yusuke deep down in his greedy blackened heart, at least before he openly turns against him, although what happens is heavily implied to be Stockholm Syndrome on Yusuke's part, and it's also implied that the man does make an effort to care for his pupils enough to prevent them from speaking against him, so he can fleece them whatever way he wanted to without their knowledge. Furthermore, in Strikers, Yusuke also implies that he doesn't even bother giving all of his pupils a proper bed and some pupils have to sleep on the ground.
  Shadow Madarame: Livestock are killed for their hide and meat! [Exploiting artists] is no different, you fool!
• Agent Peacock: His Shadow wears garish robes and makeup that are meant to look revolting.
• Animal Motifs: Peacocks, fitting with him representing Vanity. Peacock feathers feature in a lot of his artwork and his Palace, along with a heavy blue and gold color scheme.
• Archnemesis Dad: He adopted Yusuke after the boy's parents died, and serves as the boss of the dungeon where Yusuke gains his Persona.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: The Artist's Grace makes all attacks become Armor Piercing Attacks. It makes the target enemy weak to all affinities by covering them in paint. True Artist's Grace is a version that affects the entire team, though he will very rarely use that.
• Artistic License – Religion: Azazel isn't typically associated with any particular one of the Seven Deadly Sins, though myths describe him as having taught women how to use makeup, which makes him a decent enough fit for a villain representing vanity.
• Attention Whore: He started stealing his students' work because he couldn't stand the thought of being out of the spotlight due to his artist's block. He also specifically edited the infant out of Sayuri to deliberately make it look more mysterious and drive up its worth through speculation. Then there's the absolutely gaudy outfit and makeup his Shadow wears.
• Bad Liar: Ann points out several contradictions when he tries to cover up his multiple copies of Sayuri. When Madarame claims the original was stolen and he had to sell copies to make a living, Ann points out that he couldn't have made copies if the original was stolen. Madarame then claims he got a high-quality photograph from an art book, but Ann shoots that down too when she points out Madarame himself said his clients have a keen eye for fine art; they'd know if he was selling them a copy of a copy. Then, when Ann and Yusuke uncover the real Sayuri moments later, Madarame claims it was a counterfeit that he bought from a thief. Ann points out that this excuse is "pushing it," since an artist wouldn't knowingly buy a fake copy of his own work; he'd call the cops. After his lies are exposed, Madarame throws out Ann and Yusuke, then says he'll call the police on them. The Phantom Thieves deduce that Madarame can only do that once his art exhibit is over to avoid unwanted attention (and to avoid having to tell the same lies to the general public), which sets up the time limit for Madarame's Palace.
• Bait the Dog: His introduction presents the impression of a Humble Hero who kindly took Yusuke in when he had nowhere else to go. It doesn't take long for cracks in the facade to show when his shadow outright brags about them, especially in the finale before facing him at his palace.
• Break the Haughty: While most targets have this to some extent, it's most pronounced with Madarame. In his palace, his Shadow boasts about how easy it is to take the futures of kids who can't fight back and how he only cares about money and fame, using stolen art to do so. After his defeat and his change of heart, however, he breaks down in tears as he admits to his crimes.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: His Shadow has them.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Unlike the other targets, who are openly hostile to the protagonist and friends right away, since they trust their influence to protect them, Madarame at least pretends to be nice and personable on the outside. He has several "logical" excuses prepared to cover his tracks if exposed and it's only when the party keeps pressing the issue and forcing their way past his facade that he finally drops it. It's his Shadow that blatantly flaunts his arrogance and exposes his humble demeanor for the lie it truly is. This is part of why Yusuke has such a hard time understanding the truth and takes it so badly.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He indeed used to be a famous artist and his work is not terrible at all, but he decided abusing his pupils and stealing credit from them was a simpler way to maintain his artistic success instead of, well, actually making art.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: Despite his international renown as an artist bringing him considerable wealth, he lives in a run-down shack and dresses in simple clothes, lifestyle choices which he claims contribute to his artistic creativity. In reality, it's all an act. His shadow reveals he has a separate, much more luxurious home under a mistress' name, and is primarily driven to exploit art for profit.
• Broken Pedestal: Yusuke initially deeply respects him and finds it hard to believe that he'd do any wrong. By the end of the arc, Yusuke's faith in him is completely shattered.
• Captain Ersatz: Invoked. In Royal, he summons fake elemental copies of himself that are explicitly called Ersatz (Anger/Joy/Sorrow/Mirth) as offense.
• Card-Carrying Villain: His Shadow, in complete contrast to how he appears in person, has absolutely no shame in his evil deeds, fitting for the sin of Vanity.
• Child Hater: According to his old acquaintance, Madarame hated children, which made it odd for him to even adopt Yusuke in the first place. Turns out the reason was to leech off of their talents. However, it's implied with Yusuke that guilt over what Madarame did prior to taking him in played a part of it.
• Clone Degeneration: In his second phase in Royal, he spawns elemental copies of himself. If the fight drags on long enough, they spawn at low HP and have status ailments, ready to be killed in one hit.
• Cognizant Limbs: In order to get at the real Azazel, you have to destroy four portraits - two eyes, a nose and a mouth - each of which attacks separately, and each of which has its own unique resistances.
• Consummate Liar: He's capable of deceiving anyone who had never met his Shadow or personally lived with him as a disciple long enough to witness his true nature.
• Creative Sterility: He became so enthralled with plagiarizing his students' works that he no longer makes his own paintings.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: His own talents as an artist weren't that bad; he did actually teach pupils how to paint, after all. If he hadn't decided to run a scam by exploiting his pupils to cover for a slump, Madarame could've had a successful legitimate career as an artist. But, befitting his sin of vanity, this wouldn't get Madarame nearly as much prestige and attention as he felt like he deserved, so Madarame cheated his pupils out of their careers to further his own.
• Dirty Coward: His Shadow is possibly the most undignified and cowardly of all the Palace Rulers, begging for its life and groveling all the way to the end unlike most Shadows that ultimately take their fates in stride.
• Driven to Suicide: Not him, but Nakanohara (one of Madarame's former pupils) informs the Thieves that another of Madarame's pupils found his conditions untenable and left, later finding out that Madarame had been using his pupil's art for the master's own gain; said ex-pupil subsequently ended his own life.
• Elemental Powers: Madarame's portraits form can use renamed versions of Bufula and Garula. His human form uses Madara-Megido.^note a sharply watered-down Megidola.
• Evil Counterpart: To Sojiro. Both are older men who have taken in youths and looked after them, but while Sojiro is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who genuinely cares for his charges, Madarame is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who abuses the students he takes under his wing. The similarities run deeper when you take the child they've adopted and their relationship with that child's mother into account. Sojiro laments not being able to prevent Wakaba Isshiki's death and adopted Futaba as a way of atoning for it, while Madarame let Yusuke's mother die so he could profit off of her Sayuri painting, and exploits Yusuke's artistic talent in the present day.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: To a lesser extent than Okumura, but Yusuke wants to love Madarame, since despite the abuse he was still effectively his father. The best evidence of this is in the Third Semester, where Yusuke's ideal world is having Madarame as a supportive and kind parental figure who can guide him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite his disdain for children, it's revealed that Madarame did genuinely care about Yusuke, even though he exploited the hell out of him and his talents and had no issues throwing him under the bus when he was in danger of being exposed.
• Evil Old Folks: He's the oldest of the targets.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Unlike all of the other treasures which take some form appropriate to the Palace ^note for example Kamoshida's Treasure is his Olympic Medal but it is a Crown in the Metaverse to match the Castle Palace, Madarame's treasure (the original Sayuri) is the only one that is the same in the Metaverse as in the real world (aside from a more ornate frame). It's fitting since Madarame's Palace is a Museum and stealing a painting is something to be expected, and that painting just happened to also be the source of his distorted desires.
• Fake Special Attack: "Madara-Megido", Shadow Madarame's signature move in his human form. Most people who have played the Shin Megami Tensei series games would be worried to see a Megido attack that hits everyone and cannot be resisted (let alone nullified, repelled or absorbed), especially this early in the game... except that it does pitiful damage when it hits.
• Fallen Hero: According to Kawanabe, Madarame was at one point a legitimately passionate artist before his spirit was crushed by the politics of the art world. It's also shown that he legitimately taught students like Yusuke how to paint (even if Yusuke inherited his mother's natural talent for it), and could have had a decent career as an artist if he'd stayed on the straight and narrow.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: His first appearance, talking to some of the characters on a sidewalk from a car, is framed largely the same way as Kamoshida's introduction, as a visual cue that he's your next target. It's subtle, but the fact that that his car is also a luxury car is the icing on the cake — this tells you that he isn't as impoverished as he seems to be before you even know anything about him.
• Flunky Boss: Madarame's second phase in Royal is spent summoning his Ersatz copies on each of his turns (if there are less than 4 of them).
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: At the end of his Confidant, Yusuke no longer calls Madarame master but seems to come to peace with what Madarame sincerely did good for him. Even if this is quite twisted considering the circumstances.
• Foreshadowing: After his Shadow is defeated he mentions a Metaverse user with a "black mask" that he believes the Phantom Thieves are affiliated with. While small this is one of the first hints that a conspiracy is targeting the Phantom Thieves, and there is another character with the ability to use the Metaverse.
• Freudian Excuse: Downplayed. While it is terrible to hit an artist's block when your livelihood depends on it, unused content in Royal and other implications indicate Madarame still had friends and a shot at life. When his Shadow feebly lays out his flimsy excuse to Yusuke, he has nothing but contempt for his former master.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • During his boss battle, all of his "unique" attacks are the game's basic elemental spells with different names and less impact. Perhaps the most blatant and pathetic is Madara-Megido, one of the most powerful attacks in the series which he renamed after himself, and yet does very light damage. Even in his own palace, the man can't come up with anything original.
  • In Royal, he is somehow made even more pathetic, as after the painting is removed, he will start summoning clones of himself that cast the same "unique" attacks in his painting form that somehow do even less damage. Your area-of-effect spells are more of a threat than the clones are. In fact, when he summons too many clones, somehow they will be summoned with status conditions on them and very low HP that they can be killed in 1 hit.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In Royal he says a specific phrase directly at Yusuke during the boss fight, even if Yusuke is not in the party and was not talking to him at all during the fight.
  Madarame: N... Ngh! Stop this... Is this how you show your gratitude to the man who raised you!?
• A God Am I: As shown by his quote and fitting with his sin of Vanity, Madarame considers himself to have godlike authority over the world of art.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: His Palace and a lot of the things inside are gold or painted gold. Shadow Madarame wears robes like his real self entirely of gold. All of the gold is considered a gaudy eyesore by the Phantom Thieves.
• Hate Sink: Madarame is a very detestable man for abusing his own students, to the point of one committing suicide, as well as leaving Yusuke's mother to die to steal the 'Sayuri' so he can forge it as his own work. Played with somewhat after his defeat, as Yusuke's Confidant reveals that a part of him genuinely did care about his pupil, in spite of continuing to exploit him, even if that in no way excuses his many crimes.
• The Hedonist: Before his fight with the Phantom Thieves, Madarame's Shadow goes to great lengths to explain Madarame's love for money and excessive lifestyle behind his pupil's back, including living in a mansion and having an unknown mistress. This along with the revelation he murdered his mother is what causes Yusuke to deem Madarame less than a human.
• Heel–Face Turn: In the new bad ending of Royal where the player cuts a deal with Maruki, Madarame is seen working with Yusuke on a new painting.
• Henohenomoheji: He plants a fake treasure as bait for the thieves. It's a painting of this with a cover on it. Shadow Madarame brings the real treasure to the boss fight.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: While it's in its four portraits form, Azazel can cover a party member in ink, which gives them a weakness to every attack. If you don't take him down when he returns to his portrait form for the third time, a special operation unlocks where you can send a party member to cover him in the ink, allowing you to make short work of him. For an extra layer of irony, this also mirrors his MO in the real world; he's serial thief of other artists' ideas, but is defeated by someone stealing his powers.
• Hypocrite: Practically everything about his initial characterization is a facade. He acts like a humble, self-deprecating artist and in fact explicitly claims that the key to his success is his detachment from worldly desires such as fame and fortune. His Palace ends up revealing that fame and fortune have been all he's cared about for a while, and only convinces his students not to profit from their art, so he can instead.
• Ironic Name: His given name "Ichiryusai" means "Top artist." While he might once be, he now is simply reduced to scamming his pupils and plagiarizing their work. Some cut content in Royal for his Palace shows that his actual given name was the more mundane Ichitaro ^note the milk name of Utamaro Kitagawa, whom Yusuke is named after.
• Inelegant Blubbering: When confessing his crimes at a press conference, his character portrait shows him openly weeping with streams of tears and snot running down his face. Several pedestrians later mock him for it, with a comical drawing of his wailing showing up on the class blackboard.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: He exhibits this during his boss battle. At first he laughs maniacally then seemingly melts into his demon form, which speaks in a high and mighty Large Ham tone. Once the portraits are destroyed and the real Madarame appears, he looks extremely terrified and seems to be talking big just to deny that he can hold his fort no longer, and it's revealed that he's not transforming into the portraits, he's just hiding behind them.
• It's All About Me: His sin and motif, an older sin (Vainglory) that would be folded along with Pride. For years he has not made a single piece of art on his own, taking credit for his disciples'. The resulting fame has given way to self-idolatry on his part, using his status for money and to stroke his ego (his Palace, a grandiose art museum based in his own run-down house in the real world, is proof that his humble behavior is little more than an act, as his Shadow claims he has a grander house under a mistress's name). His refusal to make any work of his own also gives him elements of Sloth.
• It's Personal: Yusuke feels deeply betrayed after discovering Madarame's true nature in his Palace. And then he reveals he essentially murdered Yusuke's mother in order to steal the painting she made for Yusuke as a baby.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A microscopic example. He is nothing but a hideously evil Jerk with a Heart of Jerk in the story, but toward the end of Yusuke's confidant, the sympathetic and tragic sides of Madarame's personality are discussed. Joker and Yusuke conclude that deep, deep down, Madarame still had some good in his heart through sincere concern for Yusuke.
• Kick the Dog: To a sociopathic degree. Although only audible in the game through Will Seeds, an unused scene in Royal fully depicts Madarame's last moments with Yusuke's mother. It's revealed an unhinged, envious Madarame stood over her dying and ranted over what he planned to do with her gone. After she dies, he smirks.
• Laborious Laziness: He goes through a great amount of effort to find and mentor pupils, and even let a woman die so he can steal her masterpiece and take her son as well, rather than make good art on his own or take up a more appropriate career as an art critic.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The whole reason why the Phantom Thieves found out for sure that he was taking advantage of his pupils is because one of them, Natsuhiko Nakanohara, started to stalk his ex-girlfriend after having his dreams crushed and she posted about the harassment on the Phansite.
• Master of All: His reputation is partly due to mastering all forms of Japanese art, although this is a lie- he's simply stealing the credit from his apprentices, who bring a variety of styles to the table.
• Money, Dear Boy:invoked His shadow claims that there's no purpose for art except as a brand or as a way to make money. After he's beaten, he confesses that he's scared of being a Starving Artist again. Yusuke has little sympathy for his plight, given what he did for the sake of it.
• Murder by Inaction: Yusuke's mother had a seizure in front of him one fateful day. While Madarame didn't cause the seizure, he did let her die when he could've called for help in order to exploit the Sayuri for profit. Yusuke isn't impressed with the difference, and he declares that "every reason for [him] to forgive [Madarame] has disappeared without a trace" when he finds it out.
• Off Stage Villainy: Surprisingly, despite being touted as one of the most heinous targets in the game's setting, the worst thing from Madarame we do see the consequences of is his enabling of Yusuke's mother's death and stealing her masterpiece to create forgeries of. The suicides and abuses of his pupils are only mentioned in passing, and we only see a mere two victims of his, Nakanohara and Yusuke. Yusuke doesn't seem to suffer from any visible forms of abuse, either. Compare this with Kamoshida, where you can see him leaving many bruised students in his wake and one victim even attempting suicide on-screen.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Subverted in Vanilla. While he has a dangerous painting form that you must kill, he's just hiding in these paintings (similar to wearing a suit of armor); it's his Shadow form that you have to defeat to win the fight.
  • Inverted in Royal. The painting does not regenerate; instead, he can actually fight on foot by summoning Ersatz copies of himself.
• The Paranoiac: In contrast to Kamoshida before him and most others after, Madarame's Palace is already highly fortified with guards on high alert and security traps, surprising the Phantom Thieves on their first tour of it. All of this illustrates the measures Madarame goes to protect his lies and dark secrets in reality.
• Pet the Dog: While Yusuke resolves to change Madarame's heart as soon as he encounters his Shadow, he does note that Madarame at least had the heart to adopt and care for him for most of his life. It's subverted when Madarame's Shadow reveals that he let Yusuke's mother die to steal her work, and in fact adopted Yusuke for the express purpose of covering this up. Yusuke pointedly tells the Shadow that he has no reason left to forgive him. A potentially straight example, though, is when an old acquaintance of Madarame recalls how Madarame once called him, desperately trying to find someone to treat Yusuke when he fell ill with a fever as a young boy.
• Plagiarism in Fiction: He steals the credit for his students' work. The most prominent among them is a painting titled Sayuri, which is seen in-universe as his greatest work. In reality, the painting was a self-portrait of Yusuke's mother holding him when he was a baby, and knowing that she would likely die young due to her illness, she intended it to be a parting gift for her son. When she did die, Madarame gave the painting a name and painted over the baby in order to make it a shallow sensationalist piece. The untouched painting is what his Treasure manifests as in the real world, likely because he either saw it as a stepping stone to his rise to fame or was unable to kill his admiration for the original's artistic merit.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • He waits until after the art exhibit ends to press charges against the party, knowing that doing so during the exhibit would only damage his reputation. Ironically, this restraint gives the Thieves time to steal his heart, and ends up being his undoing.
  • While it is treated as a potential Pet the Dog moment, him trying to save Yusuke as a child could easily be seen as him not letting his potential golden goose die. Ultimately, the intent of this action depends on when Madarame realized Yusuke's talent.
  • While Kamoshida and Shido are also Bitches in Sheeps' Clothing, Madarame is more consistent in maintaining his friendly facade and never drops it until he actually feels threatened, allowing him to create fewer enemies and to make it harder for his apprentices to realize they're being exploited. He's also more subdued in ruining those who stand up to him; rather than openly flaunting his power, he directs the art scene to blacklist the pupils who'd had enough of him, resulting in their careers being ruined without leaving a clear trail back to him.
• Properly Paranoid: In spite of his apparently friendly demeanor toward the protagonists, and that he has no real reason to consider them a threat, his Palace's security already considers them enemies the first time they enter, resulting in them immediately changing into their thief costumes. His suspicions are correct since they did come with the intention of stealing his heart.
• Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: Just like some other bosses later on, if you take more than 50 turns to defeat him in Royal, he instantly annihilates your entire party with a jacked-up version of Megidolaon. That said, it's way more difficult for him to slog down the fight there compared to the Vanilla version, so if you see him doing that, you're either doing something very wrong or you're triggering it on purpose.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: He has a great deal of influence in the art world, and uses it to retaliate against anyone who speaks out against him by having them blacklisted. He all but names the trope at one point.
• Secretly Wealthy: Despite claiming to be a Starving Artist, he actually has an extra apartment registered under the name of a mistress. An even more subtle hint is that even before the Thieves know anything about him, in the first scene he appears on-screen he's sitting in a luxury car.
• Self-Deprecation: He's willing to pretend to do this in order to further his facade. When Yusuke gets angry as the party reveals their suspicions to him, Madarame tries to get him to calm down, saying that it's natural that not everyone would like him. When Ann breaks into his private room, causing Yusuke to discover Madarame's counterfeiting racket, he makes up another lie on the spot about how having his painting stolen, as well as his own financial irresponsibility, landed him in a tough position and pushed him into doing this kind of shady work.
• Self-Made Lie: While Madarame is renowned for his expertise in Japanese art and was a genuinely talented artist early in his career, a bout of artist's block caused him to gather his pupils' works and pass them off as his own, leading to a years-long plagiarism scam that saw said pupils either exit the art world on a bitter note or more tragically end their lives due to a lack of recognition. Even his purportedly humble living standards are a sham as well, as he forced his pupils to live in a rundown shack while he lived in a mansion under his mistress' name.
• The Sociopath: Other than the implications he felt guilt over his role in Yusuke's mother's death and has a sliver of genuine affection for the boy, Madarame is an egotistical and manipulative hedonist that cultivates a lifestyle abusing and exploiting children. The fact one of his victims committed suicide from this never even registers on his radar, hence why the Phantom Thieves fail to mention it in the calling card- the target has to be aware of the crimes.
• Stern Teacher: Despite his artist's block, Madarame was respectable enough to still judge and teach younger artists according to an unused scene in Royal. He was noted by Yusuke's mother to be very harsh, so it naturally came as a surprise to her when he was in complete awe of her Sayuri painting.
• The Svengali: A manipulative, exploitative figure who is using Yusuke for his own gain while claiming Yusuke "owes" him for taking him in. And he killed his student's mother too.
• Technologically Blind Elders: Downplayed and Implied. In a story where smartphones are very important to the plot, he is the only one in both the game and anime to use a flip phone instead and is definitely the oldest of the main targets.
• Time-Limit Boss:
  • Madarame's boss fight is an interesting inverted example, as dragging his fight out long enough for him to regenerate his painting form twice makes it a near guaranteed victory for the player. At this point the player can steal his Signature Move that makes the target weak to all forms of damage, including basic physical attacks. While not a guaranteed victory for the player, it makes the fight much easier as you can pretty much knock out all of his paintings in one turn. In Royal, since the painting form is gone after the first phase and does not come back, the time limit is instead his Fake Clones becoming extremely weak and having Ailments on them after he keeps summoning them.
  • Played more straight in his second phase in Royal, where if you do not kill any of the Ersatz copies in 5 turns, Shadow Madarame uses True Artist's Grace, making the whole party weak to all affinities. This can easily lead to a party wipe from the copies, depending on the difficulty of the game.
• Took a Level in Badass: Subverted. The Royal trailer shows that, rather than being defenseless when taken out of his Azazel form, he summons four elemental copies of himself to keep fighting. Unfortunately, the clones don't do anything other than spamming his portrait form's elemental attacks that hit for pitiful damage because they have very low stats, and they can be easily defeated and abused for 1 Mores. The only catch is the clones repel attacks of the same typing as them, making crowd control difficult. They can also sometimes be summoned with negative status effects already applied if Madarame summons them too often. It symbolizes how low and pathetic he has sank to for resorting to producing nothing and plagiarizing his students' work beneath his artificially bloated ego.
  Madarame: I'm the great artist, Madarame! If you brats cannot fathom that... Then you'll witness it for yourselves! Behold my master craft!
• Two-Faced: The real Madarame acts quite calm and collected for such a twisted person. It is impossible to know what he's actually like before you end up crossing him... or you meet his Shadow, who blatantly spills everything about him without remorse, and he even looks proud of it.
• Villain Ball: Shadow Madarame was able to dupe the Phantom Thieves by letting them steal a decoy of his Treasure. Rather than let them escape and waste their one chance (not that he would know It Only Works Once), Shadow Madarame confronts the Phantom Thieves and brings his actual Treasure with him to gloat. But naturally, gloating and showing off are a key part of his sin, Vanity.
• Villainous Legacy: While not on the same level as Kamoshida, he still plays a significant role in Yusuke's Confidant.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: In the original game, Madarame is a tough opponent and much more tactically challenging than the bosses up to that point, especially compared to Kamoshida. His paintings use the main 4 elements, buffs and debuffs and unlike Kamoshida (who uses almost entirely physical attacks) he will attempt to get One Mores from both using elemental weakness and his "The Artist's Grace" making one member of the party weak to all affinities (which he always follows up with Rakunda). His paintings each absorb a different set of elements, which makes it harder to knock them all out ^note The Eyes absorb Fire, Ice, Elec, and Wind, The Nose absorbs Psy, Nuke, Bless, and Curse, and the Mouth absorbs Gun and Physical. Since there are 4 paintings (which means up to 4 turns, same as the player) he also has noticeably high damage output if you don't neutralize 1 or 2 of the paintings quickly. He mostly loses this status in Royal, since the paintings do not come back after the first phase and are replaced by the Ersatz copies (though it is possible to get stuck on the paintings phase). The Ersatz copies, despite punishing group magic spells, are easily exploited for baton passes and there is a much smaller emphasis on buffing and debuffing.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Madarame feels entitled to profit from the works of his pupils, and that they should feel grateful towards him for providing something as basic as a roof over their heads despite the abuse he puts them through.
• Was It All a Lie?: Discussed during Yusuke's Confidant. Yusuke acknowledges that Madarame took care of him from infancy despite there being no evidence that he would have any artistic skills, and Kawanabe recalled a time where he was desperately looking for a doctor after hours when a baby Yusuke caught a fever. This suggests that he wasn't always as awful as he's seen in-game. Or at the very least, he was pragmatic enough to not kill off his golden goose.
• We Used to Be Friends: He was once friends with Kawanabe from Yusuke's Confidant, but they stopped speaking years ago. One of the last times Kawanabe heard from Madarame was when Yusuke fell ill.
• Wham Line:
  • "She just so happened to have a seizure in front of me." Shadow Madarame says this when Yusuke asks if Madarame killed his mother. And while Madarame technically didn't kill her, the fact that Madarame intentionally let Yusuke's mother die for the sake of getting the Sayuri for himself makes it Murder by Inaction. At this point, Yusuke declares that "every reason for [him] to forgive [Madarame] has disappeared without a trace", and the boss fight against the Shadow starts.
  • After the fight, he drops another: "What about the other one though? The one in the black mask?" This is the Phantom Thieves' first indication that someone else is active in the Metaverse, hinting that the mental shutdowns are the result of another Persona user who isn't as careful about their target's psyches.
• Wicked Pretentious: He's this, as he watched Yusuke's mother have a seizure and has decayed to the point that he no longer demonstrates any actual talent or appreciation for art.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Nakanohara and eventually Yusuke realize that Madarame's modus operandi involves disposing of his apprentices once he no longer needs their talents. He's even willing to go as far as to let Yusuke's mother die in order to steal her masterpiece and exploit her son.
• You Killed My Mother: To Yusuke's mother, via Murder by Inaction. She just so happened to have a seizure in front of Madarame, and he intentionally didn't call for help so that he could get the Sayuri without any strings attached.

Bael (Junya Kaneshiro)

Junya Kaneshiro

^{Shadow Kaneshiro}

^{Bael Transformation}

^Piggytron

Money-Devouring Banker of Gluttony

"The strong and the smart devour the weak. That is the natural order of things."

Sin: Gula (Gluttony)
Shadow: Bael
Voiced by: Kazunari Tanaka (JP, original game), Takahiro Fujimoto (JP, anime and Royal), Jalen K. Cassell (EN)
Stage actors: Yuya Matsushita (The Stage)

The third major target. He is a mafia boss and extortionist who was infamous for his pitfall scams targeting high school students for money. His indifference toward his victims and overindulgent lifestyle creates a Palace inside the collective unconscious, where he takes the form of Bael, the demon of Gluttony.

His Palace is a massive floating bank, and in the real world it is imposed across the entirety of Shibuya, as he runs many of his operations out of it. His Treasure, which resembles a massive stack of gold bars in the Palace, is a gold plated suitcase filled with stacks of fake currency in the real world.

---

• Achilles' Heel: While his Bodyguards-for-Hire are incredibly tough, resist everything and prevent your attacks from hitting Kaneshiro, a simple Dormina or Makajam will disable them and let you go straight for him, in addition to letting you hit the guards freely. Furthermore, they're Only in It for the Money, so once he uses up all of his money to fund his Desperation Attack, the Guards flee and never come back.
• Adaptational Jerkass: As bad as he is in the original game, his Animation counterpart is even worse. When blackmailing Makoto, he orders his men to forcefully strip her naked before having her pictures taken. Fortunately, they were stopped by the timely intervention of the Phantom Thieves.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Kaneshiro's shadow has purple skin.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: Declares his intent to make Sae his "personal slave" to Makoto's face. It ends badly for him.
• Animal Motifs: Pigs and flies, both animals often associated with gluttony. Piggy banks appear all over his Palace, and both are visible during his boss fight, with him assuming a fly-like One-Winged Angel form in combat and piloting a giant mechanical piggy bank for his second phase in Vanilla and first in Royal. Pigs also fit with his general appearance, and in Royal, his bodyguards are giant flies.
  Kaneshiro: Yeh called my Piggytron a pig earlier, right? Were yeh talkin' about me too when you said that?!
• Artistic License – Religion: Played with; even though his design is based on Beelzebub, Kaneshiro's Shadow uses the name Bael, the name of the original ancient god that was demonized in Judeo-Christian traditions into Beelzebub.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Shadow Kaneshiro wears a gray three-piece suit, and is the only Shadow aside from Shido to directly engage the Phantom Thieves on foot (though not for long...)
• Bad Boss: After receiving the calling card, he orders his goons to hand over their earnings or he will kill them for no reason except to apparently salvage his wounded pride. His Shadow threatens the guards he sends at Makoto after her Awakening in a similar manner.
• Bait-and-Switch: His treasure in the real world is a golden suitcase full of money...which is completely fake. The case that the money came in, however, is made of actual gold. The Thieves sell that off in order to fund an expensive dinner at a high-end sushi restaurant.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: In the vanilla game, he starts off on foot and the track "Keeper of Lust" plays, usually reserved for mini bosses, before the second phase begins proper with Piggytron, which plays "Blooming Villain" like it does for the other bosses. In Royal, the fight starts with "Keeper of Lust" like in the vanilla game...until it suddenly changes to "Blooming Villain" and the Piggytron phase starts right away.
• Balance Buff: In Royal, Piggytron's Super VIP form only takes one turn (instead of 2 like in vanilla), and Kaneshiro can no longer be damaged to stop the attack. This forces the player to give Kaneshiro an expensive item to prevent March of the Piggy instead of Cutting the Knot.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Bael is based on Beelzebub (the Lord of the flies)/Baal, so of course Kaneshiro's Shadow turns into a bugman.
• Blackmail: Takes photos of the protagonists inside his club, with alcohol and cigarettes in the shot when they try to confront him, and threatens to release the pictures in three weeks if they don't pay him 3 million yen.^*At the time of the game's release, that would be about $26,500 US dollars. The party has to clear his dungeon before he makes good on this threat.
• Blatant Lies: He says that his Piggytron "ain't a pig, yo!", even though it looks like a cross between a bank vault and a giant mechanical pig. And he referred to it as "swine-model".
• Boss-Altering Consequence: You can distract him by having a party member throw a rare item in front of him, preventing him from acting for a few turns.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In contrast to Kamoshida's volleyball team slaves and Madarame's painting cognitions of his pupils, Kaneshiro's walking ATMs are all virtually identical to each other.
• Break the Cutie: His Shadow threatens Makoto with this, which leads directly into her Awakening.
  Kaneshiro: Then you better start taking customers tomorrow. All you gotta do is endure it and do as you're told. You'll earn three million yen in no time. Although, your life and everything along with it will be a complete wreck by then! Gwahahahahaha!
• Card-Carrying Villain: Kaneshiro is an extremely wealthy and powerful gang leader and proudly makes no effort to pretend he is anything but that. Much unlike the other targets.
• Conspicuous Consumption: Gives 3 million yen to his mistress basically for the hell of it. It's why his sin is Gluttony and not Greed - he wants money solely to show off that he has it, rather than harboring greater ambitions like Okumura.
• Corrupted Character Copy: A Fat Bastard with his claws deep in his hometown's criminal underworld, viewed as The Dreaded by both civilians and his underlings alike, and practically untouchable by any conventional form of law enforcement. Perhaps the only thing separating him from The Kingpin of Crime is the fact that while the Kingpin does genuinely love New York (or at least, some variations of him do), Kaneshiro is ultimately out for himself. Additionally, while the Kingpin is on top of organized crime, Kaneshiro is apparently a relatively low-level thug in a crime ring (and he likely only earned his reputation because he was financing Shido with the money he got from scamming people).
• Disproportionate Retribution: He orders the party to hand him 3 million yen after he gives the same amount to his mistress. And he only wants the party to pay that money because they interrupted him from sexually exploiting Makoto.
• The Don: He's evidently the head of his own Hangure group, although it is mentioned that he has his own superiors.
• The Dreaded: It's stated that very few people know who he actually is, but that everyone fears the shadow he casts over Tokyo with his gang activities. After Ohya finds out more about his personal details, she suggests the protagonist not get involved further for his safety.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Slightly. When hinting at the Antisocial Force to the Phantom Thieves, the tone in which his Shadow describes how there is no low they won't sink to implies even Kaneshiro thinks they're in a different league of depravity. That said, based on his reaction to the Phantom Thieves' ideals, it's made clear Kaneshiro would enjoy using the supernatural gifts of those around him for his selfish benefit if he had them.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He's genuinely befuddled that the Phantom Thieves aren't exploiting the hell out of the Metaverse to enrich themselves like Shido.
• Evil Sounds Deep: A gluttonous, blackmailing, sex-slaving oyabun with a deep voice.
• Expy: To Horkos from Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. His Color Motif is green, his Animal Motif is a pig and his Palace even represents Gluttony.
• Fartillery: Piggytron's Fear Gas attack comes out of its exhaust port.
• Fat Bastard: Take a good look. Also, he's extremely touchy about it.
• Faux Affably Evil: In the Japanese version, both Kaneshiro and his Shadow have a very polite and "proper" manner of speaking until the boss fight. In the English version, this doesn't apply to the real Kaneshiro, but his Shadow speaks formally and eloquently unless he's angry. Upon first meeting his Shadow, Makoto deduces that he's not really going after Makoto for breaking into his hideout; it's more because she's Sae Niijima's little sister, and Kaneshiro wants to have blackmail that he can use against a prosecutor. Shadow Kaneshiro replies that this is "quite the impressive insight" to Makoto, confirming it's true while keeping his voice low with a dark smile on his face.
• Filler Villain: Downplayed. The only major events that happen during his arc are Makoto becoming your ally, and learning more about Black Mask. He has no personal connection to anyone in or out of your party, his boss fight is fairly straightforward, and his confession happens entirely off-screen, with Sae and Akechi recounting it. It's pretty likely he's just here to demonstrate the Phantom Thieves' powers. On the other hand, he's tied to the Antisocial Force as one of its financial backers, and because he had been notorious for evading the police for so long, his change of heart is what truly puts the Phantom Thieves on the map. Furthermore his actions actually have a severe effect on Shujin Academy by spreading drugs and criminal behavior to the students, making him one of the more important Targets the heroes go after.
• Flaw Exploitation:
  • Late into the fight against Piggytron, the Thieves distract him by giving him valuable items, allowing them to wail on Piggytron while Kaneshiro is obsessing over his new possession and not paying attention to the fight.
  • In Royal, the Piggytron is actually his Phase 1, and during his Phase 2, he fights on foot and summons a pair of incredibly tough fly guards for hire. Once the bodyguards block an attack directed to him, Morgana will tell you to put them to sleep so they can't block attacks and can be hit extra hard for technical damage.
• Foreshadowing: After his Shadow is defeated, he comments how the Phantom Thieves are wasting away their extraordinary powers to uphold a "naive sense of justice" and could instead exploit them to take control of the world. This is what the the protagonist sinks into doing in the ending should he side with Yaldabaoth after concluding society cares nill for their justice and isn't worth saving.
  • To a lesser extent, his Palace in Royal is where the game sets up a tutorial for the player to the revamped Technical hits system.^note While Technicals can be performed in the previous two Palaces, Royal adds the ability to upgrade them through playing billiards in Kichijoji, which is unlocked directly after clearing Madarame's Palace and in turn sets this up for use in Kaneshiro's. This directly sets the player into using them against both of Kaneshiro's new minions in his boss fight, both of whom are vulnerable to status ailments.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Kaneshiro thinks that he can extort the poor and gain money from them because he himself grew up in poverty. This does nothing to gain any sympathy from the Phantom Thieves.
• Gluttonous Pig: With his round and squat figure and his Piggytron superweapon, it's clear that Kaneshiro has a distinct pig motif going on. That paired with his desire to get more money regardless of means as a Villainous Glutton, makes him a clear take on the connection between greediness and pigs.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: His shadow has a Hitler mustache and he’s one of the only major targets who doesn’t even try to hide that he’s evil.
• Gonk: He's distinctly uglier than the other targets, who go more by They Look Just Like Everyone Else!.
• Hand Rubbing: Shadow Kaneshiro's fly form does this a lot. It's a gesture fitting for both money-grubbing villains and actual flies.
• Hate Sink: Despite his minimal screentime, by comparison, Kaneshiro tails behind Kamoshida and Shido as the most despicable villain in the game. He doesn't even have a Bait the Dog moment like Kamoshida does, being introduced as a remorseless career criminal who will hurt anyone for money. Even after his Shadow is defeated, he still acts smug, unrepentant, and condescending towards the Phantom Thieves, something that not even Shido's Shadow did.
• The Hedonist: As the representation of Gluttony, Kaneshiro indulges in spending frivolously without a regard for the consequences. He doesn't spend money because he wants something, but rather he spends money for the sake of spending money.
• Hired Guns: His Elite Mooks are Only in It for the Money and leave if they are still alive when Kaneshiro runs out of money.
  Kaneshiro: Wha- Hey! Where'd everyone go!? I'm just a little short on funds at the moment! C'mon, come back, yo!
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Played for the laughs for Piggytron; do enough damage to him when he starts up Piggytron's "Super VIP Form" Rolling Attack, and he'll fall off and be squashed himself. It has no effect on gameplay, however.
  • Played straight during his on-foot phase in Royal; if you drop his HP low enough there, he rains all the cash in his vault to severely damage you with around the same power as Hassou Tobi. Unfortunately, the money doesn't come back and since his bodyguards are Only in It for the Money, they flee if they are still around and don't return, leaving him open for assault.
• Humongous Mecha: Pilots a giant mechanical Piggy Bank named Piggytron in the second phase of his fight.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Wants to make Sae his "personal slave", and intends on forcing Makoto into prostitution to recoup the 3 million yen. The latter occurs if the player misses his Palace's deadline, though (thankfully) not actually as it's a product of Joker's drug induced stupor.
• Irony: In Royal, he summons an incredibly tough Hitman-for-Hire and Bodyguard-for-Hire and claims that he can do anything with money while boasting about their toughness. It just takes one Dormina or Makajam to disable them and hit them for extra huge damage.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: For all his smugness and confidence, his Shadow is shown to be extremely insecure especially when concerning his weight and wealth. This is what drives his obsession with money, due to being mocked for his weight and poor background.
• Kick the Dog: Saddling Makoto and the Phantom Thieves (when he thought the latter were still ordinary high-schoolers) with a 3 million yen debt basically out of spite, and then his Shadow threatening to make Sae and Makoto Sex Slaves if they can't pay. That last one ends up triggering Makoto's Awakening.
• Laughably Evil: He may be a heinous criminal, but seeing his Shadow's goofy little mustache and use of Totally Radical slang, as well as him piloting a giant mechanical piggy bank makes him come across as one of the sillier villains.
• Loan Shark: His Shadow alludes to it, cheerfully offering the party a loan at an interest rate of 10% per day.
• Meaningful Name: Kaneshiro literally means "Money Castle". Nothing could be more appropriate for a target whose Palace is a bank. Ryuji even lampshades it in the anime.
• Money Fetish: Should be obvious, but his Will Seeds really hammer it in.
  Money is Life...
  Give me money...
  Money... is power..
• Money Is Not Power: He's obsessed with money, thinking that having enough of it will let him do anything and shield him from all consequences. The Phantom Thieves prove this completely wrong. Royal plays the trope even straighter; when he uses his Make It Rain attack to drop his vault's money on the Phantom Thieves it leaves him broke, at which point his powerful hired goons instantly desert him.
• Money Mauling: In Royal, his "Make it Rain" attack deals a lot of Physical damage by dropping mountains of coins on the Phantom Thieves. However, It Only Works Once, since he exhausts his vault to do it. When Kaneshiro tries the attack a second time, only a single coin falls. This not only does absolutely nothing to the Phantom Thieves, but it makes his guards run if they're still there since they're both Only in It for the Money.
• Morally Bankrupt Banker: Kaneshiro isn't actually a banker, but he sees his scam as the equivalent of running a bank. For this reason, his Palace is a bank of which his Shadow is the President.
• The Napoleon: It is never discussed in game, but Kaneshiro is noticeably shorter than all his goons in both the real world and in his Palace. Only his Hitman-For-Hire is smaller than him. It also explains why he would overcompensate with a Humongous Mecha.
• Never My Fault: Claims he's just a victim of society after losing to the party since as a poor, ugly man he had to do evil deeds to get to the top! The party doesn't show him any sympathy after what he's done.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Twice. Blackmailing Makoto and the team lets them enter his Palace, and his Shadow's threats towards Sae help trigger Makoto's Awakening.
• Nouveau Riche: He exemplifies the obnoxious mannerisms and greed typical of the Nouveau Riche, on top of being a criminal.
• Obviously Evil: While other Targets at least have a good reputation to cover themselves (though Kunikazu Okumura's reputation takes a nosedive even before his heart is stolen), Kaneshiro is the only Target whose job is criminal by nature and also a target of police, and the other reason why the Phantom Thieves targeted him (aside from Makoto's request and getting blackmailed) was to show the world that the Phantom Thieves will also target corrupt people who are also on the police's radar, to show they're not 100% against law enforcement.
• Off Stage Villainy: Despite Kaneshiro being a dreaded crime lord infamous in Shibuya, the player only meets one actual victim of his, an extremely minor NPC who drops out of the plot thereafter, and his known crimes are merely standard underground extortion pitfalls with predictable consequences. He does try to blackmail the Phantom Thieves and his Shadow reveals that he wants to turn Makoto and Sae into his sex slaves, but the worst consequences of that only occur if his Palace isn't completed on time and even then it didn't actually happen.
• Oh, Crap!: Makoto's awakening and direct assault on his Shadow's guards leave this impression on his face. He regains his composure quick, though.
• One-Winged Angel: Transforms into a more fly-like version of himself as Bael. This form isn't much of a threat on its own though. Instead, the real threats in his fight are his robot Piggytron and his Hired Guns in Royal.
• Orcus on His Throne: The Thieves only meet the actual Kaneshiro once, and the only other time he appears is after the Thieves sent him the calling card. He's never even seen appearing out of his nightclub.
• Personal Mook: In Royal, the Piggytron goes first and he fights on foot once it's destroyed, summoning two flies that are known as Hitman-for-Hire and Bodyguard-for-Hire, which he claims to be hired with money to protect him. True to the word, they are incredibly tough due to resisting everything, but it just takes a simple Dormina or Makajam to neutralize them and go for Kaneshiro.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: When the party first encounters his Shadow, he states that young women are the easiest to target because they lack strength and brainpower and that they only exist to be 'devoured'. Makoto's awakening is largely triggered by the glee he expresses over the prospect of making her and Sae Defiled Forever by having them work as prostitutes.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Kaneshiro cultivates a mysterious image as a dreaded Shadow Dictator of one of the most untouchable and terrifying gangs in Japan. When the Thieves meet him, however, he proves to be nothing like what's expected of such an individual. Kaneshiro introduces himself throwing a ridiculous temper tantrum over his guards letting kids into his den, then anxiously claims he must spend a lot of money now to relieve the "stress" of such a situation. Just like Okumura, his Palace is also one of the more aesthetically childish ones compared to the deeply twisted natures of the rest, illustrating Kaneshiro as a deeply insecure manchild under all the bluster.
• Purple Is Powerful: Kaneshiro’s suit jacket and his Shadow counterpart's skin are purple, fitting someone of Mafia "Royalty".
• Rags to Riches: He was once poor, and "worked" his way up to the top.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He is not as lustful as Kamoshida, but Kaneshiro is still considered one of the most deplorable targets of the Phantom Thieves due to his desire of wanting to force both Niijima sisters to a life of sex slavery. He even stated that he was planning on making Sae his "personal slave", something that greatly angered Makoto.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Does this to Makoto, calling her useless in comparison to her sister, whom he also wants under his thumb. Like Kamoshida, he ends up triggering Makoto awakening her Persona.
• Retail Therapy: He claims that he spends money to relieve stress and that the 3 million yen he demands from the protagonists is to pay for a present he gave to one of his mistresses in anger over his subordinates allowing someone to find him.
• Robbing the Mob Bank: He's a mob boss and his Palace takes the form of a bank.
• Rolling Attack: Piggytron's most dangerous move, though you can make it backfire on him.
• Sadist: His Shadow laughs maniacally at the thought of destroying Makoto's life by forcing her into sex trafficking. On top of that, most of the ATM people in the Palace are either begging for mercy or lamenting ever getting involved with him, implying that on some level Kaneshiro enjoys the process of grinding people down to their last penny.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He elects to skip town when his calling card arrives. It doesn't help him.
• Sexual Extortion: Tries to blackmail Makoto into prostitution over the three million yen, and it's heavily implied he intends on forcing a Scarpia Ultimatum on Sae.
• Slimeball: A greedy, greasy, ugly Jerkass who tries to blackmail Makoto into prostitution and isn't even that tough on top of it all - yep, Kaneshiro checks all the boxes.
• Smug Snake: For all his Shadow's intimidations, he's really a blustering coward who's completely helpless without his money; see him essentially having to jump inside a giant mechanical piggy bank to actually pose a threat, and hide behind bodyguards who are Only in It for the Money in Royal. His real self, for the few times the party meets him doesn't act that better either.
• The Social Darwinist: Believes those at the top of society should oppress the weak. Ironic, seeing as he used to be poor himself.
• The Sociopath: Much like Madarame, Kaneshiro cultivates profit from exploiting children and has absolutely no qualms over it. And say whatever you will against Kamoshida and Shido, at least their cognitions of other people indicate they recognize them as human beings if only for their own gain. Kaneshiro not only puts up no facade, his cognitions of the people of Shibuya are walking, talking Automatic Teller Machines, indicating he sees every living person around him as things to exploit for money.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Compared to the Japanese version where he talks more like a cocky thug, he has a surprisingly soft-spoken, reserved voice in the English dub. Even moreso when you meet his banker Shadow Form who gives off an air of polite sophistication. However after transforming into Bael, he is extremely over-the-top in his mannerisms and speech, and starts talking like a stereotypical rapper shouting most of his dialogue.
• Squashed Flat: This happens to him if you mess up his Rolling Attack by attacking him while he's on top of it. This is only possible in the vanilla version of the game, and is removed in Royal.
• Stealth Pun: His shadow gains fly wings and eyes when it turns into Bael, and he speaks in Totally Radical lingo. In other words, he's acting fly.
• Straw Misogynist: His Shadow derides women as weak, stupid and powerless and all but says they're only worth anything as Sex Slaves. Makoto soon makes him eat his words.
• Teen Hater: One of his reasons for creating drug trafficking schemes targeting high school students is because he thinks the youth are just stupid and naive saps who will believe everything told to them by the Internet.
• Terms of Endangerment: Refers to Makoto with terms like "pretty little student council president" and "Miss Beautiful President".
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Combines this with Tranquil Fury after realizing his men got followed by the Phantom Thieves. When Ryuji asks him why he's giving money to his mistress seemingly out of the blue, Kaneshiro responds with a ghastly smile and this line:
  Kaneshiro: I'm royally pissed right now. Can you tell? You know how spending money relieves stress? [...] See this empty space? I'm so pissed that now there's a three million yen gap here.
• Totally Radical: Once Shadow Kaneshiro does his transformation into a human fly, he starts speaking with a lot of slang and moving his hands like he's a rapper.
• Tranquil Fury: When he receives a calling card from the Phantom Thieves, he nonchalantly dismisses it, but he's obviously seething with anger given the terror coming from the goon who passed the calling card to him and Kaneshiro's vow that "they'll pay for this..."
• Trick Boss: In Vanilla, at first he's pretty weak and only fights on foot. The standard boss music also does not play and the mid-boss theme plays instead. But after you beat him, he instantly hops onto his Piggytron and fights at full force, with the music becoming the actual boss theme. In Royal, this is reversed, as he fights on foot with a pair of bodyguards after you beat the Piggytron and the music is the actual boss theme on default.
• Villain Baal: Bael is used as the name for Shadow Kaneshiro's One-Winged Angel form. Interestingly, while Bael is named after Baal, he takes more cues from Beelzebub, the patron demon of gluttony who was designed to be an Adaptational Villain of Baal, including being designed as a humanoid fly.
• Villainous Breakdown: When the calling card arrives, he threatens his men to hand over everything they've earned at once lest he kill them while he and his mistress intend to skip town. Like this helped him in the end.
• Villainous BSoD: In Royal, at the end of his second phase. Once he runs out of money, Kaneshiro's goons abandon him and he stops fighting back. He starts using all of his turns "being remorseful".
• Villainous Glutton: His sin and motif. He's a crime boss who flaunts his power with money and objects and isn't afraid to trample over others to gain even more of it. In fact, he becomes incredibly distressed when his bank runs out of money after using all of it to finish the Phantom Thieves in Royal. His Palace being a massive bank ties to Greed as well, but the main difference between him and Okumura (who better embodies the latter sin) is that Kaneshiro is satisfied overindulging as an oyabun, whereas Okumura has ambitions beyond being president of his company. His need for overindulgence can be tied to having grown up poor.
• Villain's Dying Grace: Not exactly dying for real, but once his Shadow is defeated, he decides to throw the Thieves a major bone on the mysterious conspiracy without dropping any names.
• Visual Pun: Both of his battle forms are based on a pun relating to their name. Piggytron is a mechanical piggy bank, it is piloted by Bael and it can convert into a ball. Also, during his boss fight, he sprouts bug eyes and wings, while speaking more casually and with slang. In other words, he's literally acting fly.
• Wicked Wastefulness: Part of the reason why he represents Gluttony rather than Greed is because he makes money in order to wastefully indulge in it rather than use it for any long-term goal.
• Wicked Pretentious: His Shadow affects the mannerisms of an upper-class bank president, though he abandons it for his boss battle.
• Wolfpack Boss: Kaneshiro's second phase in Royal has him flanked by two Elite Mooks, Hitman-for-Hire and Bodyguard-for-Hire. Individually they are all weaker than Piggytron, but together they form a powerful team. Knocking either of the guards out of the fight makes it easier, and when it's down to just Kaneshiro the fight gets very simple.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Despicable as he is, it takes a special kind of criminal to go from having his hideout discovered by a bunch of kids to fabricating blackmail material on the spot, by simply pulling out his cell phone and taking a photo. Furthermore, his Shadow revealed that extorting money out of them wasn't his real objective; Kaneshiro was hoping that Makoto would fail to pay him and then use her as leverage against her sister the prosecutor, who he knew was trying to send him to prison, a chance he spotted the moment his men brought Makoto to him.
• You Fool!: Right before his boss battle, he stops trying to justify himself and breaks out a long string of childish insults.
  Kaneshiro: It's always the fools who get tricked! Fools who have to pay for their foolishness! And if those fools don't learn, well they have to suck it up and stay as plain, stupid fools!

Shadow Futaba (Futaba Sakura)

Shadow Futaba

Self-Loathing Pharaoh of Wrath

"I am the other you. How long will you continue blaming yourself and shutting yourself away from the world? For your mother's death. Don't you think it's time you grasped the truth of that moment? What happened before your eyes... What happened to your mother... Why did you choose to rely on the Phantom Thieves? Are you simply going to shut yourself in and do nothing? Are you going to avert your eyes from the true answer? If so... I will kill them in your world."

Sin: Ira (Wrath)
Boss: The Sphinx
Shadow voiced by: Aoi Yūki (JP), Erica Lindbeck (EN)
Sphinx voiced by: Minako Arakawa (JP), Erin Fitzgerald (EN)
Stage actors: Mei Fukuda (Shadow, The Stage)

The fourth major target. Futaba Sakura's feelings of Survivor Guilt and self-hatred create a Palace inside the collective unconscious, where her emotions manifest as the Sphinx, avatar of Wrath. Unlike the other Shadows, Shadow Futaba isn't the Sphinx. Rather, Futaba's Shadow represents her suppressed positive feelings about herself. Meanwhile, the Sphinx is Futuba's misguided projection of her dead mother, whose passing has been driving Futaba deeper and deeper into self-loathing. After realizing the Thieves are trying to help Futuba, she willingly aids them, and eventually becomes the Persona Necronomicon to protect her other self.

Futaba's Palace resembles an Egyptian pyramid meant to serve as a tomb, and it is based in her and Sojiro Sakura's house in the real world. Due to the unique circumstances surrounding her and her Palace, her treasure turns out to be herself. While Morgana suspects that a "traditional" Treasure lied in a massive sarcophagus at the top of the Pyramid, Futaba enters her Palace herself, and subsequently becomes the Treasure instead.

For tropes pertaining to the real world Futaba, see here.

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• Already Done for You: Futaba accepts her Shadow on her own, without the party's help.
• Anachronism Stew: Paired with Retro Universe. Her palace is in the form of an ancient Egyptian pyramid, albeit with the hieroglyphs being replaced by binary code, and various statues and displays swapped with holograms and other computer tech.
• "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop: Her goal isn't to get Futaba to completely reject her anger about her mother's death, but to re-direct it to the people who actually caused her mother's death, instead of uselessly blaming and hating herself.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Asks one to lead up to her revealing that Wakaba loved Futaba all along and was actually murdered for her research by someone who then blamed Fukaba.
  Shadow Futaba: Why did you think it was suicide?
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The dungeon is based on Futaba's thoughts and controlled by her Shadow, so things are expected to occur like they did in Persona 4, right? Nope, Futaba's Shadow is not the boss of the dungeon, and Futaba accepts and converts into a Persona without a fight, using it to pull a Big Damn Heroes on the real boss: a false version of Futaba's mother created by her mind, a manifestation of her belief that her mother blames her for her death. To top off the switch, Futaba herself is the treasure of her palace: by "stealing" her own heart, she is able to reform from a suicidal shut-in to a happier and more confident young woman who overcomes her fear of her mother. It also prevents her from suffering the usual fates of those who have their treasure stolen as she is able to maintain her free will instead of ending up being in the prison of regression as a docile and eerily tranquil girl and oh, getting arrested as Ali Baba.
  • Futaba's acting as a shut-in will lead players to assume her sin motif is Sloth, which is what the Phantom Thieves put on her calling card. Except her true sin is actually Wrath, representing her self hatred in the form of blaming herself for her mother's death, as well as unintentionally enabling a group of government hacks to impersonate her group Medjed to resort to a nationwide hacking spree that endangers not just her, but the identities of people like Joker and the rest of the Phantom Thieves.
• Break Them by Talking: She does this to her true self a few times to get her to think harder about her mother. Futaba starts out sad and emotional until she recognizes what her shadow is doing. Eventually it becomes a Rousing Speech that spurs Futaba to righteous anger, awakening her persona.
• Build Like an Egyptian: Her palace takes the form of a desert and massive Egyptian pyramids and temples.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Shadow Futaba's security level icon takes the form of white eyes, which glow upon the Thieves being spotted.
• Enemy Without: She's a Shadow Self, what did you expect? Well, joke's on you. Shadow Futaba and the Sphinx are two different people, with Shadow Futaba embodying Futaba's remaining hope and desire to come out of her depression.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: The Shadows in the palace call her "Queen Futaba" during negotiations, but it's played with in that while she's antagonistic to the party at first, Futaba herself is a significantly better person than the other targets, and her Shadow reflects that.
• Good Counterpart: Unlike the Shadows in Persona 4, who were born of the repressed negative feelings of their hosts, Futaba's Shadow is her hidden positive feelings, since Futaba outwardly is filled with self-loathing.
• Good Is Not Nice: Despite wanting Futaba to live and overcome her grief, the first time they meet, she asks Futaba how long she's going to ignore the truth and rely on the Phantom Thieves. She then says that if Futaba keeps acting this way Shadow Futaba will just kill the Thieves in the Palace, and insinuates it would be the real Futaba's fault.
• The Heartless: Shadow Futaba is the first Shadow in the series to actually invert this trope as she was born from Futaba's positive feelings instead of her negative ones.
• The High Queen: Is described as "Queen Futaba" by the shadows of her palace, and while she's antagonistic at first, both the shadow and Futaba herself are significantly better people than the other palace rulers.
• Hero Antagonist: Shadow Futaba, born as she is of the real one's survival instinct and attempts to talk herself out of suicide, is actually a Jerk with a Heart of Gold - Futaba's own (understandable) anxiety at having outside forces meddling with her heart is the reason she's hostile to the Phantom Thieves, instinctually trying to protect her. The enmity disappears once it's demonstrated that the Thieves mean no harm.
• Ineffectual Loner: Shadow Futaba doesn't initially realize she needs the Thieves' help to save Futaba from herself.
• Meta Twist: As explained above, the fact that she is a Shadow borne of Futaba's positive emotions was a rather unexpected plot twist at the time, to the point where the entire folder used to be spoiler-marked because of this.
• Nepharious Pharaoh: Futaba's antagonistic Shadow dresses like an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh. Actually, she's not nearly as antagonistic as most Shadow Selves are.
• Only Sane Man: She's the only part of Futaba's pysche that kept a clear head instead of being overcome with self-targeted wrath at the reading of the suicide note and realized that it was fake, because Wakaba was a loving mother and never would've blamed her problems on Futaba.
• The Power of Hate: Fittingly for the palace that represents the sin of wrath, Futaba's Shadow encourages the real Futaba to vent her anger at the adults responsible for not only killing her mother, but also faking a suicide note which mentally wrecked her for years under the pretense that she was responsible.
• Pyramid Power: The dungeon's Boss Battle hides at the top of a massive pyramid.
• Rousing Speech: Gives one to the real Futaba before the Sphinx is fought in order to help her move on from her trauma.
  "You were used! They forged her suicide note and laid the blame of her death upon you! They trampled all over your young heart! Get mad! Don't forgive those rotten adults!"
• Seven Deadly Sins: The palace overall has two of them. One is the Sphinx, which to summarize is Futaba's perception of her mother's hatred against her, representing the dungeon's main sin, Wrath. The other is Sloth, represented by Shadow Futaba, or moreso her IRL counterpart, as she was looking for an easy way to recover from her trauma and being a Hikikomori, her shadow never actually fights you (in fact her overall resistance is comparatively token to the other palace rulers), let alone take a monstrous form (a feature only shared with one other palace ruler) and the persona Shadow Futaba turns to doesn't fight much either, being a Support Party Member, and sloth would be the dungeon's dedicated sin if not for the Sphinx and Mementos. As you can tell, they directly oppose each other. The trophy for completing the Palace refers to it as the "Pyramid of Wrath", since Sloth is associated with the people of Tokyo.
• The Stoic: Shadow Futaba is completely controlled and measured at all times, even as the Phantom Thieves grow more and more frustrated with her riddles and games. The Sphinx, on the other hand, screams every line at the top of her lungs and attacks savagely and constantly unless stunned by a catapult shot.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: One moment she asks the party for help, only to immediately let them fall into a death trap afterwards. This is a representation of the real Futaba's desire to be saved and her instinct to push people away as a defense mechanism.
• Survivor Guilt: Her isolation is due to her mother dying due to mental shutdown followed by a car accident, which people falsely said was suicide due to the stress of raising Futaba. And she's so depressed she thinks her mother blames her for it.
• Tarot Motifs: The Reversed Hermit, representing unhealthy and excessive isolation, symbolized by Futaba's Palace being on the other side of a massive desert, even when the gang enters the Metaverse right outside her room. The actual Sphinx, not Shadow Futaba, represents this. Shadow Futaba represents the upright Hermit, the ability to grow emotionally from introspection and finding inner balance and stability.
• Token Good Teammate: Whereas most of the other Palace Rulers are portrayed as unrepentantly evil (and the two that aren't, Sae and Royal's Maruki, are still only Anti Villains at best), Shadow Futaba is instead revealed near the end of the Palace to actually be a heroic Shadow that actually represents Futaba's repressed positive emotions rather than her negative ones, and is really trying to protect Futaba.
• The Unfought: Because she was Good All Along. She instead transforms into Necronomicon to help fight the real boss of the dungeon.
• Unstoppable Rage:
  • Her sin and motif is Wrath - The Sphinx, that is, as she appears to Futaba as a massive beast fueled with anger and a need for vengeance stemming from Futaba being born. The Wrath also manifests herself in the real Futaba - in an ironic twist, her anger and hatred is directed towards herself. Shadow Futaba herself does not embody Wrath at all, but is instead accused of Sloth (in its despair and fear aspects) by the Calling Card-and even that's a bit downplayed, as Shadow Futaba's initial antagonism is born of Futaba's social anxiety, and she actually wants Futaba to break out of her isolation and shell. However, the organization that she led and is impersonated by Shido's cronies, Medjed, represents this as the Cleanse is utterly indiscriminate in whom it targets and that includes her and everyone she knows.
  • Shadow Futaba encourages Futaba to embrace her anger before she awakens, stating that she shouldn't forgive the adults who made her life a living hell.

Mammon (Kunikazu Okumura)

Kunikazu Okumura

^{Shadow Okumura}

Star-Reaching Dictator of Greed

"'Overcome failure at any cost, even if it means betraying others...' That is our family motto!"

Sin: Avaritia (Greed)
Shadow: Mammon
Voiced by: Hirohiko Kakegawa (JP), Christopher Corey Smith (EN)
Stage actors: Hiroya Matsumoto (The Stage)

The fifth major target. He is the president of Okumura Foods, a fast food company most famous for the Big Bang Burger chain you can find in various places in the game, and he is Haru Okumura's father. His selfish ambitions to enter the political world at the cost of both his company and employees' livelihoods create a Palace inside the Metaverse, where he takes the form of Mammon, the demon of Greed.

Okumura's Palace is a Space Station, and it is based in the Okumura Foods World HQ in the real world. His treasure resembles a mysterious orb with a metallic shell, while in the real world it manifests as a model toy kit of a spaceship he wanted as a child but was too poor to buy it.

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• Abusive Parents: Forces his daughter into an Arranged Marriage with a man he knows is sexually predatory, solely for political gain and while treating Haru like she’s dead to him if she doesn’t go along with it without question. In Royal his cognition of Haru is a mindlessly subservient Corporobo that he orders to suicide bomb the thieves as a last resort without hesitation, showing that he is fully willing to sacrifice Haru for his own gain.
• Action Bomb: He will order his robot minions to self-destruct during his boss battle. He orders Cognitive Haru to do this as a last resort in Royal.
• Adaptational Badass: In Royal, not only do his robots leave after 2 turns, getting replaced by fresh ones, but he also gains the ability to order his robots to target a specific party member. Inverted with himself, though, as he goes down in a single hit of any damage.
• Adaptational Jerkass: He's arguably even worse in Royal, having a cognitive copy of Haru as an android completely loyal to her father. During his battle, he constantly berates his employees for losing or failing to kill a target quickly enough and constantly corrects himself to say "his" company when talking about Okumura Foods. Once the Execurobo is defeated, he orders her to step in and turns her into a robot that self destructs after two turns. This means that if there is nothing left for him, he's not above throwing his own daughter under the bus to save his own skin. In addition to this, when he is referring to the real Haru during the whole fight with him, he even calls her an imitation that looks like his daughter, indicating that if she didn't go by the arranged marriage at that point, she is no longer his daughter, or even human for him.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The anime removes his I Surrender, Suckers moment and has him make a more genuine apology to Haru. After Black Mask shoots him dead, his last words are reminiscing about happier times with Haru, rather than lamenting the loss of his utopia.
• Alas, Poor Villain: His business practices are hard on his employees, and he puts Haru in an arranged marriage with an abusive spouse who happens to be the son of a member of the Diet to give himself a political boost, but Haru still legitimately cares for him and believes he can be the good man he once was... and so none of the Thieves think he remotely deserved his fate, never mind the effect it has on poor Haru. The anime also gives his Shadow a sad death scene, with his last thoughts being dedicated to his daughter.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: His shadow has blue skin, making it look like a space alien.
• Ambition Is Evil: His wishes to expand his wealth and his influence through becoming the prime minister and arranging the marriage between his daughter and a sleazy playboy, completely ignorant of the suffering he inflicted on his daughter. However, his political opponent is known for ordering mental shutdowns on people he doesn't like, and so he paid dearly for it with his life.
• Archnemesis Dad: He is Haru's father while also serving as the boss of her dungeon, since she wants to change his heart so that she won't have to get married. Played with, in that he would be an example of Good Parents were it not for his willingness to sacrifice Haru's happiness for his political ambitions. His Shadow is horrified upon realizing Haru has turned on him, but quickly declares her worthless and leaves her to Cognitive Sugimura.
• Asshole Victim: Deconstructed. While Okumura is shown to be a terrible person who has done horrible things to many people, including his own daughter, it does not mean he deserved to die a horrible death. This is even brought up in-universe when the incident is broadcast live. Initially, many people on the Phansite disturbingly rejoice at his fate for all the crimes he had done, but once the euphoria dies down their mood shifts to that of horror.
• Back from the Dead: In Royal's third semester, he is inexplicably alive and back in Haru's life. It turns out Maruki resurrected him as part of his Lotus-Eater Machine.
• Badass Fingersnap: His shadow snaps his fingers when summoning his minions or casting spells on the party. It's evocative of a master telling their servant to hurry up.
• Bad Boss: Orders his robot minions to self-destruct to damage the party. To a lesser extent, the real Okumura is highly exploitative of his employees, which is why they're represented as robots in the space station, and apparently had executives who were opposed to his plans for expansion subjected to mental shutdowns.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Okumura tries to climb his way up to the political ladder, and it's even implied that he plans on running against Shido in the elections. Unfortunately, he's nothing more than another loose end for the Antisocial Force to tie up.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He enshrines betrayal as a family motto, which backfires on him when Haru takes his words to heart and betrays him to the Phantom Thieves. The Antisocial Force kills him because Shido thinks he's "betraying" him by running against him.
• Closet Geek: He's always had a love of space and sci-fi, which bleeds not only into his palace, but also his restaurants' theme.
• Control Freak: A very negative take. He is completely controlling of Haru's life and almost every little thing she does.
• Contrived Coincidence: His mental shutdown occurs right as he was about to reveal that Shido was the ringleader of the Antisocial Force. This is despite his shadow being killed anywhere from the day beforehand to several weeks prior.
• Cool Chair: His shadow sits in a futuristic hoverchair during his boss battle.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He is the head of a fast food empire who overworks his employees to dangerous levels, puts profit over the quality of his products, and is a member of The Conspiracy overtaking his country.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Upon his Shadow Self being killed, in the real world he oozes out sludge from his mouth and eyes on live television in a way that looks extremely painful.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Despite being an overall horrible person, his daughter Haru truly loves him, and is horrified when he has a mental shutdown on live TV.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In contrast to Madarame (mostly) and a true monster like Shido, Okumura genuinely cares for Haru despite his willingness to put his ambitions first, and genuinely begs for her forgiveness once he's defeated. It makes her reaction to his death considerably more tragic.
• Fatal Flaw: Greed, obviously. In this case it's not just a desire for more money (that's Kaneshiro), it's his willingness to sacrifice anything, even his own daughter, to get to a better social position; everything except his ambition is equally worthless to him. Literally in this case, as it's implied his political ambitions put him into conflict with Shido and partly fueled the decision to knock him off.
• Flunky Boss: The flunkies he summons form the main part of the fight (the last of which is essentially a King Mook), with Okumura himself hanging out of reach, supporting them with buffs and debuffing your party. Once his flunkies are all gone, Okumura himself turns into a Zero-Effort Boss, since he'll never attack, and he'll go down with just a few regular hits.
• Food Fight: His King Mook has an attack which involves a cartoony tray of a Big Bang Burger meal which explodes.
• Foreshadowing:
  • During the interrogation room segment, Sae warns Joker about how his testimony towards what happened with Okumura will be taken very seriously. This is a hint towards him getting killed during the course of the story.
  • Right before his arc kickstarts, Igor will warn you to not let your guard down by the heights of your popularity. Afterwards, the Phantom Thieves are worshipped by the public and Shido's men start flooding the Phan-Site with requests for the Phantom Thieves to take Okumura down. However, it's less of genuine loyalty but more of an apathetic bandwagon where the public will even cheer for his death after he is assassinated. It's implied that the public's cognition was manipulated by the Holy Grail (who was disguised as Igor at that time) just so he could get his twisted "game" going.
  • Throughout the year if you watch the TV in Leblanc you'll notice a lot of people in the fast food business having psychotic breakdowns or mental shutdowns. His overuse of Akechi drawing too much attention towards himself was likely part of why he was killed, along with his political aspirations.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Wears glasses and happens to be a villain targeted by the Phantom Thieves. Played with, in that he's one of the more sympathetic ones.
• Freudian Excuse: Haru notes that when he was a child, his father/her grandfather was a kind businessman, but was often in debt due to his lack of financial skills. Kunikazu had to watch his father undergo this and thus shaped himself to become the opposite: a shrewd and ruthless businessman with little kindness. His Treasure manifested in real life is actually a spaceship model kit he desperately wanted, but could not afford, which also explains the theme of his palace.
• A God Am I: One of his Will Seeds echoes him proclaiming something along the lines of being revered as a god.
• Gratuitous English: In the Japanese version, he gives Morgana ten seconds to choose between him and the Thieves, saying "Time is money!" in English.
• Greed: His sin and motif. His business practices (overworked employees and unsanitary working conditions among them) are unethical and driven by profit, and he put his daughter in an Arranged Marriage with the son of a member of the Diet so that he can enter the political world, not only knowing that the younger man would likely take mistresses but consenting to let Haru be one of them should she become unsuitable for marriage. His space station palace embodies both his ambitions and his tacit ignorance of his sacrificing Haru's happiness.
• Hated by All: Okumura is infamous among the public for the treatment of his employees, which is why he topped the polls on the Phansite as the Phantom Thieves' next target. Even when it's later revealed that the Antisocial Force rigged the polls, it ultimately mattered little considering the public's initial opinion towards his death. This is likely one of the reasons why the conspiracy had him pegged for death, as his infamy would bring bad publicity to the other members by association. Since his entire motive is to run a campaign against Shido for the prime ministership, it's also very likely a move for the Antisocial Force to make sure that Shido becomes the prime minister uncontested.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: He could've ended up in the Prison of Regression, but is killed by Black Mask before that could happen. This is more pronounced in the anime, as after Haru leaves, Okumura vows to prioritise people over profits from then onward before being shot dead mid-sentence.
• He Knows Too Much: As he's about to reveal the ones behind the Antisocial Force, his Shadow is shot and destroyed, causing his real self to die during a press conference soon after.
• His Name Is...: Black Mask kills him before he can reveal Shido is leading an antisocial conspiracy.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: One of his attacks, Big Bang Challenge, deals a ton of Almighty damage. While it may seem bad, it actually helps out any party members affected with Hunger; instead of being hurt, the attack fully heals them and removes Hunger.
• Informed Kindness: Okumura supposedly loves Haru deep down, but other than a gesture of apologizing once his Shadow is truly beaten, this is never remotely made apparent or implied even in Haru's Confidant. Even Madarame is revealed to have cared more for Yusuke than Okumura was revealed to with Haru. In his palace there isn’t a cognitive version of Haru in Vanilla (implying that he doesn’t even remotely care about her) and in Royal he does and not only is she mindlessly subservient, he doesn’t hesitate to order her to suicide bomb the Phantom Thieves as a last resort. In the third semester in Royal, while he is a compassionate man who spends a lot of time with Haru, this is an illusionary construct of Maruki's.
• Ironic Echo: Early on in his dungeon, he says that he believes that the Okumura way involves avoiding failure at any cost, even if it means betraying others. At the start of the final confrontation, he traps the party except for Haru and Morgana in a force field, and then repeats those lines when giving the two of them an ultimatum- betray their allies or share their fate. Then Shido decides to betray and dispose him to take down an annoyance against his road to power, frame the Phantom Thieves and to prevent his poor business records from tainting his Antisocial Force's reputation.
• Irony:
  • One of his moves during his boss fight is "Sacrifice Order", which forces one of his mooks to self-destruct the next turn. The Conspiracy he is financially backing does away with him the exact same way to prevent him from revealing their existence and harming Shido's chances at winning the election.
  • His philosophy is to sacrifice others to get ahead in life and he was noted to treat his workers pretty badly. During the boss fight with him, he eventually runs out of Shadows to use for his "Sacrifice Order" ability because of said beliefs and actions.
• I Surrender, Suckers: At the start of the fight, he tricks the Phantom Thieves into thinking he's surrendered by apologizing to Haru, then when Haru approaches him, traps the others besides her and Morgana (who manages to get out in time) in a force field.
• It's All About Me: His normal self tells Haru that her marriage with Sugimura will be an important connection for his company, "and more importantly, for me."
• It's Personal: With Haru, who he planned to force into an abusive arranged marriage for his own profit. In fact, when Sae asks you why he was singled out when there are multiple Corrupt Corporate Executives guilty of similar sins, you can explicitly say that it was because Haru was in trouble.
• Karmic Death: He requests the services of the Black Mask to eliminate competitors and disgruntled employees. Black Mask does the same thing to him at the behest of Okumura's co-conspirators.
• Kick the Dog:
  • When the cognitive version of Haru's fiance complains that Haru has been Defiled Forever because of her association with other men and says his own father may not approve of her, Kunikazu's Shadow says that he can simply take her as a lover as long as the deal still stands. Haru's horrified to hear that her father knows her fiancé is this kind of person and still would go through with the deal, and thus awakens her Persona.
  • Dancing in Starlight reveals Haru used to enjoy ballet dancing and wanted to make her father proud. Okumura was simply proud of the fact she had that talent and bragged about it to his co-workers. He never actually attended her dances, causing her to give up the hobby.
  • In Royal, he uses various insulting epithets when ordering his workers to attack the party members. Most of them aren't too bad, but calling Haru "the phony with the face of (his) daughter" is downright cruel.
• King Mook: The last robot he summons is a large and black robot that resembles some of the robots fought as minibosses, as well as in earlier waves in the Mammon battle.
• Large Ham: Shadow Kunikazu is prone to making grandiose soliloquies about his ambitions and motives.
• Loser Son of Loser Dad: His Shadow calls himself this after being defeated, claiming that he is part of "a lineage of failure," and hinting at his disdain for his father in the process.
• Mammon: Mammon is the demon name of his Shadow, matching his willingness to sacrifice anything, including his daughter Haru, in order to climb up the political ladder. He represents Greed of the Palace Rulers, though Shadow Okumura is one of few bosses who doesn't transform into a demon, instead employing his Corporobo to fight for his stead.
• Manipulative Bastard: His Shadow, by insincerely apologizing and recounting memories of the past, is able to lure Haru away from the other thieves, allowing him to spring a trap on them.
• Mook Depletion: After his King Mook is defeated, he'll try to summon more robots... and none arrive. Having thought he had an infinite number of disposable lackeys at his beck and call, Okumura is faced with the logical conclusion of his treatment of his minions: All who blindly followed his orders are dead, and any who could possibly be left refuse to help him.
• The Neidermeyer: While he is a businessman and nothing in the game gives any indication of military service, his shadow hits all the points for this trope's application. He sends wave after wave of minions to attack the P-Thieves, and from an armchair no less in his boss fight; cares nothing for their well-being, is utterly useless in combat himself, and consistently talks about using his company as a stepping stone to greater glory, namely the political sphere.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Prefers to support from afar while his minions do his work for him. When all his robots are gone, he does nothing and goes down in one hit in Royal (in Vanilla he has 200 health which is about 2-3 normal attacks at that point in the game).
• Obliviously Evil: His major problem is that he refuses to see how much his shady business practices are hurting Haru. Then subverted when his Cognitive Sugimura turns out to be just as vile as the real thing, leading to Haru's Awakening.
• Obviously Evil: Played with. His corrupt business practices are very well-known among the general public by the time the thieves target him, making him the only target other than Kaneshiro who isn't a Villain with Good Publicity. Additionally, nearly everyone is begging the Thieves to take him down. This hints at something suspicious going on, as no previous target had their secrets revealed until after the Thieves exposed them. The Antisocial Force wants the Thieves to rush into taking him down, for good reason.
• Off Stage Villainy: It's often mentioned that he sentences his workers to extreme, overbearing workloads with a severe disregard for their welfare, but this isn't visible in the real world. Joker can visit his fast food branch almost daily, but none of the clerks there act erratically or show any signs of fatigue/work overload, nor are they subject to the Phantom Thieves' investigations against him. Him commissioning the Black Mask to kill his fellow competitors is also only mentioned in-passing, with not a single victim or eyewitness to back it up. The most visibly awful thing he did on-screen was pawning Haru off to a sleazebag for political gain, and in the game's setting this is (relatively) trivial compared to the worst from Kamoshida or Kaneshiro.
• Oh, Crap!: After his most powerful robot is defeated, he tries to summon another, but is unable to do so, and is shocked to realize that it's now him against the Thieves. In Royal, he still has his cognitive Haru as a last ditch attempt, but after he suicide bombs it up in front of the Thieves and Joker still survives the attack, he makes the same reaction.
• One-Winged Angel: Averted. Unlike every other target besides Futaba, Mammon does not undergo any sort of transformation.
• Parents Suck at Matchmaking: He pressures Haru to marry Sugimura, the son of a highly influental politician. Unfortunately, Sugimura is also an extremely controlling and unrepentant jerk who reguarly abuses her. Justified, since it is made clear that Kunikazu puts his lust for power above Haru's well-being.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Aside from his treatment of his daughter, his boss fight in Royal has him derogatorily call Ann a slut. Her aside, he also throws other derogatory insults against anyone whom he wants to target with his robots.
• Poor Communication Kills: His Villainous BSoD prevents him from answering any of the Thieves' questions about the identity of the Black Mask. This leads to the Black Mask killing his Shadow after they leave, causing a lethal mental shutdown in the real Okumura.
• Pose of Supplication: His Shadow does this immediately before and after his fight- the former is a trap and the latter is genuine.
• Psychopathic Manchild: While Okumura puts up a front of a respectable man in a business suit, his shadow seems to relish in theatrical villainy and wears an obvious Darth Vader knockoff suit, and his Palace has an outlandish sci-fi theme that turns out to be directly based on his treasure, a model spaceship kit that his father refused to buy him when he was a kid.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • While in the events of Persona 5 he very obviously isn't, both him and Haru had stated that he used to be one a long time ago. By the events of Strikers, his trade partner Mariko Hyodo even confirms that Okumura used to genuinely care for Haru instead of treating her as a political pawn.
  • If one takes the time to eavesdrop on him near the Shibuya Big Bang Burger during the brief week where he's revived by Maruki, he will be seen personally inspecting that branch for his employees' well being and the quality of his products.
• The Scapegoat: He was deliberately chosen by the Antisocial Force to be targeted by the Phantom Thieves, only because Shido believed Okumura wasn't good enough for politics. They had to get him out of the picture since he still knew too much. According to the TV Station executive, Okumura ended up drawing too much attention to himself, and became a liability to Shido, hence why he was "let go."
• Shout-Out: His Shadow dresses as what looks like a mix of Darth Vader and Mysterio.
• The Sociopath: Seemingly of the utterly unfeeling and greedy variety, kind of like Kaneshiro up to even sharing inhuman cognitions of other people. Haru says that she "saw no remorse in him" when preparing to send the calling card to him. Possibly subverted with his love for Haru deep down. It should be noted he only realizes he wronged Haru after his forced reformation; before that, he was knowingly going to sell her into an abusive marriage for his gain and refused to hear her pleas.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Is revived by Maruki in Royal, though this gets undone if you oppose Maruki and go for the true ending.
• Start of Darkness: There are several lines in-game that imply that Okumura was never as shrewd, ambitious or corrupt as he is before his burger chain became famous and he tried to politically compete with Shido. At least, even if he didn't take care of his employees, he wouldn't even have considered selling Haru to an abusive fiance.
• The Starscream: It's implied that he was planning on running against Shido for Prime Minister, and this was the original reason Shido wanted him dead — framing the Thieves for his murder was a convenient second bird to kill with that stone.
• Status Effects: He and his robot minions inflict Hunger, which lowers damage output.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: He looks like your average Japanese businessman, but he's very corrupt.
• Time-Limit Boss: He must be defeated within thirty minutes after his battle starts. In Royal, his robot waves have a 2 round time limit, otherwise he will redeploy the wave. In addition, there's a time limit of ten minutes to reach him once his ship starts to take off.
• Tragic Villain: Between the numerous accounts that he used to be a better man, his genuine love for Haru beneath his cold-hearted behavior and his horrifyingly heart-breaking death, Okumura is easily one of the game's more sympathetic antagonists.
• Trash Talk: In Royal, he signals his robots to attack a certain party member with a nickname for the party member he's targeting, most of them insulting:
  • Haru: "The phony with the face of my daughter!"
  • Ryuji: "The obnoxious blond one!"
  • Ann: "The slutty-looking woman in red!"
  • Moragna: "That... bizarre, black-and-white thing!"
  • Makoto: "The barbaric, dark-haired woman!"
  • Yusuke: "The oddball with the fox mask!"
  • Joker: "The pompous man in the black coat!"
• Unknown Rival: Unlike every other major target, Okumura does not meet any of the Phantom Thieves in person (except his daughter Haru of course). During his arc, the Thieves only have a tense meeting with Sugimura, then learn about Okumura's real life plans entirely from Haru. Okumura does eventually meet Joker in the Third Semester for the first time, after being revived and modified into a decent person by Maruki.
• Violation of Common Sense: In Royal, one way to make the Okumura fight easier if you're stuck is to turn the difficulty up to Merciless. Due to Merciless multiplying weakness targeting, critical, and technical damage by 3x for enemies as well as the party, the robot waves go down a lot more easily than on the other difficulties, since none of the robots use elemental attacks. It does not help with the Executive Director battle right after the waves, but that fight is the more straightforward part of the boss battle. This is perhaps the most severe situation that Merciless falls into Non-Indicative Difficulty.
• Virtue Is Weakness: Has this mentality, expressed when he says, "Virtue and sentiment are for losers." He's willing to trample over others in order to increase and expand his wealth.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: While relatively easy in the original game, in Royal he can easily become this. The robots he summons now flee and refresh themselves if you don't kill all of them within two turns, which is further worsened by the fact that Okumura will throw buffs and debuffs around a lot more frequently to make sure you can't easily kill the robots. There is no warning before the robots flee and the battle becomes a hopeless dead lock. The fight is also dialogue ridden, forcing the player to spend extra time on it. It basically boils up to a combination of Trial-and-Error Gameplay and a fundamental understanding of buffs, debuffs, weaknesses and the Baton Pass mechanic to not get stuck in front of the stronger robots he summons.
• Walking Spoiler: He's the only Palace ruler to die after having his treasure stolen, although it's a False Flag Operation set up by The Conspiracy to get rid of someone who was no longer useful and frame the Phantom Thieves for it.
• Wealthy Yacht Owner: While it didn't come up in the game, in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight Haru comments that her father owned a yacht and that she's not sure what to do with it after his passing.
• We Have Reserves:
  • During his boss fight he continually throws employee robots of increasing rank at you, culminating in the cognitive version of the company's second-in-command, and demands they give up their lives for him if necessary. Unfortunately for him, there's only so many troops in his arsenal, and once the Phantom Thieves destroy them all he's left defenseless.
  • Royal shows that not even his cognitive version of his own daughter is exempt from this, as he uses her as a suicide bomber once he runs out of robots.
  • The manga adaptation has him order the Execurobo to use its Big Bang attack when his own minions are in the line of fire.
• Wham Episode: His unexpected death marks when things start to go to shit for the Thieves, and the point at which they seriously stake their lives to fight the Antisocial Force.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Antisocial Force has him killed when he's a liability, hacking the Phan-Site so that they set him up to have his heart stolen, leading the Thieves into their trap and being framed for his murder.
• Zero-Effort Boss: Without his minions to fight for him, he stops attacking and goes down in no more than a couple of hits. The only way to lose once Shadow Okumura can be targeted is to intentionally let the timer run out. In Royal, the way the boss fight works this time can make finally reaching him considerably harder, but he still goes down in one hit.

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