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

This is the character sheet for all characters introduced in Persona 5 Strikers. For a full index of characters from the Persona series, go here.

Just like the main page, spoilers for the original Persona 5 are left unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

(Spoilers for Royal will be marked for now, however.)

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Persona Users

Sophia / "Sophie"

Arcana: Hope^note

Voiced by: Misaki Kuno (Japanese), Megan Taylor Harvey (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/persona5strikers_sophia.png

^{Click here to see Sophie}
^{Click here to see Pithos}
^{Click here to see Pandora}

Pandora: "Can you wield that strength? Dare you unleash catastrophe upon this world? Can you cling to the paltry hope that remains? Is the puppet ready to cut her own strings? Shall the doll seize her own destiny? Then you need only call my name. I am thou, thou art I. My name is..."

Sophia: "PANDORA!!!"

A strange girl that Joker encounters while the Phantom Thieves pursue the ongoing incidents across Japan. Her original form is a massive box, but took this form per Joker's wishes. She joins the Phantom Thieves to investigate the Shadow invasions around Japan as an honorary member.

At first, she battles using a Persona-like entity named Pithos, which manifests as a set of four pillar-like objects covered in abstract, black-and-white patterns. Traditionally, a pithos is a type of container from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. Later on, however, she awakens and Pithos transforms into a true Persona: Pandora, the first human woman from Greek mythology, as well as the one responsible for unleashing all of humanity's evils on the world after opening the fabled "Pandora's Box".

Unlike the traditional Gnostic depiction of Sophia as an aspect of the "True God", this one appears to be based on the Nag Hammadi Gnostic texts where she is the lowest Aeon that represents wisdom. Interestingly, a more appropriate representation of the original interpretation where she is an aspect of the true god who accidentally created the Demiurge exists in the game.

11th-Hour Superpower: She awakens to Pandora and gains the Hope Arcana late in the game after rejecting Kuon's orders to kill the Phantom Thieves. Immediately afterward, Sophia gains Makougaon, which is the only way for her to learn Makougaon (even in New Game Plus).
Anime Hair: Her pigtails are in the shape of chains of hearts that aren't physically connected to her head. These pigtails combine into a ponytail when she's in combat. Given that she's an AI and that her base hairstyle looks like Boyish Short Hair, it's unclear whether they're supposed to represent her hair or antennae.
Antagonistic Offspring: She was created by Ichinose and goes against her near the end of the game to protect humanity from EMMA.
Artificial Intelligence: She's an AI, specifically a prototype for the AI that runs the EMMA application. As a result, she can only take on a physical form in the Metaverse. While outside it, she communicates with the Phantom Thieves through Joker's smartphone.
Audience Surrogate: As the greenhorn of the group, she's this for anyone who didn't play Persona 5, as a way to help bring them up to speed somewhat.
Badass Adorable: Physically speaking, she looks the same age as Futaba and Kasumi, and yet she can wipe out scores of Shadows just as easily as the rest of them.
Battle Cry: "Shine, Pandora!"
Become a Real Boy: While not literally (as she's an AI in Joker's phone), part and parcel of her story arc involves this, as she grows from a naïve digital assistant to a thinking, feeling person. Her gaining an actual Persona cements her as having grown into humanity, as only those who have developed egos can have Shadows or Personas. By the end, she's essentially a human girl living in a phone.
Benevolent A.I.: A literal example, Sophia is an artificial intelligence that the Phantom Thieves find in the Metaverse, who is tasked to be "humanity's companion." She takes the form of a kind young girl who constantly wants to help the Phantom Thieves with their troubles and wants to understand the human heart. In the real world, she resides within Joker's phone during the game's events, albeit in the same humanoid form that Joker found her in the Metaverse.
Bishōnen Line: Pithos usually takes the form of several floating objects covered in strange patterns. When they combine and transform into Pandora, she takes on the form of a woman with a box on or in place of her head surrounded by four panels. Both the box and panels have similar patterns to those on Pithos' units.
Braids of Action: Whenever she's in a Jail, Sophia's "pigtails" combine into a singular "braided ponytail". By that point, it's shown she is a very strong combatant.
Brainwashed and Crazy: Thanks to Ichinose during the Phantom Thieves diving into the Jail of the Abyss. She snaps out of it later.
The Bus Came Back: After 23 years, five video game console generations and over ten games in the series, Pandora returns to the Persona games as a summonable Persona. Fittingly enough, her first appearance was that of an Eldritch Abomination, while in Strikers she is a Bless user and a literal carrier of hope for the Phantom Thieves.
But Now I Must Go: After defeating Demiurge, she decides to leave with her creator Ichinose to parts unknown at the end of the game to help Ichinose better understand the human heart and help her from straying from the path.
Cain and Abel: Is the Abel to EMMA's Cain. Sophia is "humanity's companion", genuinely helpful, and sweet as a button. EMMA is humanity's end, in someone else's control, and coldly logical.
Character Catchphrase:
- "Okay, leave it to me." — Whenever the Phantom Thieves ask her to do a task, she responds in this manner, similar to a digital assistant phone application.
- "I am Sophia, humanity's companion." — how she typically introduces herself to new people.
- "Praise accepted~" — Whenever she accomplishes a task and is praised by the Phantom Thieves, she says this, followed by humming a happy little tune.
Character Tic: Sophia occasionally hums a little tune to herself. It's something she picked up from her creator, Ichinose.
Charge Attack: The last of her Master Arts lets her charge her blaster to fire a Gravity Shot that drags Shadows inward. It doesn't work on bosses.
Combat Medic: Her skillset leans heavily into this, as Pithos and Pandora learn a lot of healing spells - eventually culminating in potentially having Mediarahan (heals the party to full) and Samarecarm (revival with full HP). This is in addition to her Light-based attacking spells and her physical abilities.
Constantly Curious: Being a learning AI whose purpose is to learn the nature of the heart and installed with a desire to be "Humanity's Companion", Sophia wants to learn everything she can about the world around her, often expressing wonder at the things she witnesses during her journey with the Thieves.
The Cutie: She has an adorable design and innocent personality, reacts in wide-eyed amazement to the wonders of the world and often hums cutely.
Ditzy Genius: She has a wide array of knowledge due to being a learning AI with access to the internet, but no real experience on how to apply that knowledge. At one point in Alice's Jail, she gets valet parking and ballet dancing confused despite them being completely different concepts with no connection to each other, other than ballet and valet sounding similar to each other.
Dual Wielding: She uses a pair of oversized yo-yos to face Shadows.
Everything Is an iPod in the Future: Her near-featureless hoodie and general appearance aside from her red hair alludes to this, along with being an advanced AI.
Everyone's Baby Sister: Being both the newest Phantom Thief and an AI with little experience but earnest desire to learn about humanity, Sophia becomes this to the rest of the Thieves. They're extremely protective and supportive of Sophia and her endeavors to learn about herself and human hearts. They do not take it kindly at all when the voice in the Okinawa Jail and Sophia's own creator Kuon Ichinose insult and declare her existence a mistake and meaningless. It even causes Ryuji to say the word "fuck" uncensored, the only time in any game where he has ever said it in a voiced line. Needless to say, she adores the Thieves for being her closest friends. Joker in particular gets this a bit more since not only is he one of the first three Thieves to meet her, Sophia being stuck inside his phone makes him the closest one she can talk to while inquiring about how humans work in the real world; this even extends to gameplay where Sophie mimics Joker's signature glove-fixing animation when she joins in on an All-Out Attack.
Exotic Eye Designs: She has several black bands in her irises and her pupils are white. It's justified as she is an AI who could likely appear however she wished.
Fighting from the Inside: When she's controlled by Ichinose and forced to fight the Phantom Thieves, she fights to regain control of herself. This is represented by her eyes alternating between blue and red.
Flawed Prototype: She's a prototype of the EMMA AI, created by Kuon Ichinose to understand human emotion, and ended up being deemed a failure and thrown away after asking the latter what a human heart is. Subverted, in that this is only a flaw to Ichinose; she later realizes her successor, EMMA, is actually much worse at her purpose due to being unable to assess emotions. Thus, Sophia is actually a Super Prototype.
Floating Limbs: Pandora's fingers and feet are disconnected from the rest of her body.
Foreshadowing: There are some tips in-game that indicate Sophia's true identity.
- When first recruited, she uses Pithos, which doesn't seem to be a Persona, nor does is it considered to be an awakening. Furthermore, all of its skills have "?" behind it (i.e. Tetraja? Dia?) and its Arcana was never shown. There's actually more to it, as when she awakens and gains her true heart after showing her resolve to defy Kuon Ichinose, she manifests Pandora, a real Persona, with an Arcana and the question marks behind its skills removed.
  - Pithos is also a jar, and an inanimate object which was the actual container Pandora opened to unleash the world's vices instead of a box-like in traditional belief (this happens because of a mistranslation from Greek to Latin). This indicates that Sophia wasn't anything more than a tool created by Ichinose, and she was capable of ascending into her very own entity instead of a mere application.
  - The Arcana of Pandora, the Hope Arcana is not one of the traditional Arcanas, but from an early Tarot deck known as the Visconti-Sforza deck, just like Yoshizawa and her Faith. Upwards it represents hope and optimism, but reversed it represents pessimism and false hope. Sophia grants hope upon the people who become friends with her, but her "superior counterpart", EMMA was a mechanical monstrosity who grants the public false hope by brainwashing them.
- In the Phantom Thieves' Japan-wide trip, Sophia acts as a tour guide and provides optimal routes to destinations the Phantom Thieves will enjoy. This is very similar to EMMA's function of finding the best ways to do various things. Sophia, it turns out, is a prototype EMMA.
- When the party meets Ichinose personally in-game for the last time before The Reveal in Sendai, they show Ichinose Sophia, causing her to drop whatever loud and peppy disposition she is using right before and acts alarmingly lukewarm. Later on, we know that Sophia is the AI Ichinose dropped in a fit of rage, and the disposition she is using in front of the Phantom Thieves there was just there to prevent the Phantom Thieves from being freaked out by her natural stance (which was implied to be quite freaky). She was actually surprised that the Phantom Thieves had something that actually triggers her insecurities.
- Sophia can hear voices inside Jails that the Phantom Thieves cannot hear. These voices were actually EMMA trying to telepathically interact with an AI that she believes was inferior, and she can hear them because she was a prototype of EMMA.
- Early on, when the Phantom Thieves had confirmed that Alice was distorted, they plan a heist on her, suggesting stealing her Treasure. Sophia responds by saying that there could be no Treasure in the Jails, and casually suggests that they should kill Alice instead, something that will result in a Mental Shutdown. While this was immediately corrected, when Ichinose was defeated in earnest, she asks Sophia to kill her out of guilt. She refuses, but the suggestion to kill Alice was probably inherited from Ichinose's mindset.
Fusion Dance: When truly awakening to Pandora, all four units of Pithos stack and combine into a tall box, which then opens up to reveal Pandora.
Grew Beyond Their Programming: Over the course of Strikers, she grows from a Blank Slate with no ambition except becoming humanity's companion to a fully-thinking, sapient being. Getting her artificial Persona to evolve into Pandora becomes a great surprise to her team members and a huge shock to Ichinose, cementing the fact that she became capable of being like a normal human, gaining her own heart.
Identity Amnesia: Averted unlike other Mysterious Waif characters seen in the Persona series. Sophia doesn't suffer from amnesia despite the fact she obviously doesn't remember anything. Ichinose just scrapped her within minutes for her very own petty reasons before she went to work on EMMA, and as a result, she's basically close to blank.
Idiot Hair: While not that prominent, she has a strand of hair standing up on top of her head.
Improbable Weapon User: Her melee weapon of choice is a pair of oversized yo-yos of all things, which she uses for terrifyingly effective crowd control.
Improvised Weapon: Her "Persona" Pithos are just weapons she happened to be carrying at the time which she reformats to look like a persona after observing Joker.
Innocent Blue Eyes: Sophia has baby blue eyes that represent her innocence and naivety about the world.
Innocent Innuendo: When first meeting the rest of the Phantom Thieves, she asks them if they want her to "show her code". Futaba naturally agrees, perhaps with a little too much enthusiasm.
Innocently Insensitive: While Sophia couldn't have known it at the time since she was only a few minutes old, the reason Ichinose shut her down so quickly was because Sophia asked her about what a heart was and to tell her about hers, unintentionally mashing her creator's Trauma Button/Berserk Button.
Instant Expert: She creates a makeshift Persona from Pithos after watching the Phantom Thieves fight a small horde of Shadows.
Instant Home Delivery: She serves as the team's shopkeeper during their journey across Japan, placing orders online and having them delivered within seconds no matter where they are. There's no risk because Sophia can quickly make sure that such orders will not break the law, up to and including the purchase of a gold bar.
Interspecies Friendship: She claims that she wants to be a friend to humanity, and becomes good friends with the Phantom Thieves, so much so that Ryuji and Morgana are the first to stand up for her when EMMA tries to give her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
In the Hood: She wears a puffy white hoodie. In battle she wears the hood up to cover her face, with her mask being a screen that shows shapes in the place of eyes.
"Just Frame" Bonus: Sophia's attack power and speed increase if she attacks as soon as she catches her yo-yo.
Killer Yoyo: She uses a pair of giant yo-yos in battle.
Lack of Empathy: When the Phantom Thieves talk about stealing hearts, she initially suggests killing the Shadows instead which is met with shock since the physical person will die. She quickly gets over it, however.
Light 'em Up: She specializes in the Bless element to fill in for Akechi and Yoshizawa's absence from the group.
Light Is Good: Sophia's main outfit is white and she utilises Bless attacks. She's also one of the heroes, and the more innocent of the bunch.
Literal-Minded: Being an AI with no memories when waking up in the Metaverse and learning stuff as she goes along either with the Internet or by interacting with others, she sometimes takes statements at literal value. For example, when the Phantom Thieves meet Zenkichi Hasegawa for the first time, calling his Inspector rank "nothing to sneeze at," Sophia logs this important detail as "Inspectors are not to be sneezed at."
Magikarp Power: While not necessarily weak by herself, six of her later skills^note cannot be unlocked until her Persona evolves into Pandora, which isn't until near the end of the game.
Meaningful Name: "Sophia" is the name of the true god in Gnosticism. In most, if not all versions, she is also the creator of the Demiurge, who in turn creates materiality. It turns out she was a prototype AI for the EMMA app, which is controlled by an AI version of the Demiurge.
Machine Monotone: Downplayed. Sophia is able to provide inflection in her voice, but it's somewhat stilted and flat, like the kind of programmed voice you'd hear coming from a home assistant or from a smartphone's voice command function, with her voice sometimes stopping before saying a name in the style of Mad Libs Dialogue. This fades slowly over the course of the game, vanishing completely once she awakens her true Persona, Pandora, showing that she has truly gained an ego and a heart.
Murder Is the Best Solution: When the rest of the thieves are discussing the best way to steal Alice's heart and remove the jail she created, Sophia suggests killing her as the most efficient way to solve the problem. The thieves, horrified, quickly explain to her why they don't kill, and she drops the issue immediately afterwards.
Nice Girl: Sophia is a kindhearted program who only wants to help humanity in any way she can, and is extremely forgiving to the point of helping Ichinose, her creator who scrapped her for very petty reasons, learn what it means to have a heart and atone for creating EMMA.
The Nose Knows: She has the unique ability to detect Jails by their scent, which none of the other thieves can sense. This is because of her connection to EMMA, who created the Jails to begin with.
Pint Sized Power House: She's shorter than Futaba, but able to slaughter swarms of Shadows with ruthless efficiency like any of the other Thieves.
Quizzical Tilt: When confused about something, Sophia tilts her head and leans her body to the right.
Ray Gun: Her preferred ranged weapon.
Really Was Born Yesterday: She was essentially 'born' when Joker found her in Alice's Jail as a blank slate, as Ichinose only programmed her as the prototype to the EMMA app, abandoning her when Sophia accidentally pushes her buttons.
Recurring Element: Like Aigis and Labrys, she fills the role of the Robot Buddy who teams up with the current group of Persona-users, although she isn't a Anti-Shadow Weapon created by the Kirijo Group, but rather an artificial intelligence that resides in Joker's phone.
Red Is Heroic: Sophia has red hair and is one of the heroic Phantom Thieves.
Renamed the Same: Her real name and codename, Sophia and Sophie respectively, are practically the same, only being separated by one syllable and letter. Some of the Phantom Thieves lampshade this at first, wondering what the point of the codename is if it's essentially unchanged.
Robot Girl: She's the physical form of the EMMA AI prototype, rejected for her being too curious about the human heart.
Robot Wizard: AI Wizard, technically, but she qualifies as this after her true awakening of her Persona, Pandora.
Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Sophia often uses onomatopoeia to describe how things should react or how she feels. Frequently, she describes the effect of traveling between reality and the metaverse as "SHOWOWOWOWOW".
Sealed Good in a Can: Well, she is the can, but same idea. She initially appears as a cube in Alice's Jail, taking on a humanoid avatar when Joker touches it because that's the best way to interact with him. Pandora appears in a similar way; the Pithos units combine into a box, which then opens up to reveal Pandora within.
Shown Their Work: Her initial Persona being Pithos references the fact that in the original myth, Pandora's Box was actually a pithos (a large jar). However, when the myth was translated from Greek to Latin, it was mistaken for "pyxis", the Latin word for box, hence why it's commonly known today as Pandora's Box instead of Pandora's Pithos or Jar.
Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Shadow Akira Konoe tries to convince the Thieves that they're not so different since they're both trying to change the world by changing people's hearts, she points out that there's a fundamental difference between them. The Phantom Thieves actually saved people, while Shadow Konoe just trapped them in their own trauma.
Sophia: Don't you understand? [...] For you, changing someone's heart means imprisoning them. But for the Phantom Thieves, it means setting them free. You may steal Desires like them, but the Phantom Thieves give people hope. Maybe you don't realize it. But I think, deep down, you know you're nothing like them. [...] I've seen the Monarchs and the people whose hearts you've changed. They didn't look happy at all. I don't think you saved anyone doing what you did.
Skeleton Motif: One of the units that make up Pithos has a stylized depiction of a skeleton on it, while another has what appears to be a pair of skeletal hands on it.
Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Somewhere around tier 3 to tier 4. She's way more advanced than any typical application and intelligent enough to act as a logistical guide and a shopping manager. She's also capable of learning enough emotions to actually gain agency, unlike EMMA who never acts out of the programming.
Slow Laser: The shots fired by Sophia's blaster are slow, but cover a wide area to make up for it.
Spanner in the Works: As the metaphorical "hope at the bottom of Pandora's Box", the Phantom Thieves note at the end that they'd have never won if Sophia was never around to help guide them through the Jails.
Speaking Like Totally Teen: With access to the Internet, Sophia learns a bunch of slang and language to learn how to speak like the similarly teenaged Phantom Thieves, despite resembling a young girl. This sometimes results in her using a mix of dated and contemporary slang, such as greeting the Phantom Thieves for the first time with "Yo, Phantom Thieves" and saying "radical, dude," when they decide on her codename. While Ryuji notes she sounds more human after their second meeting, Morgana notes for her not to learn any "off-putting lingo" she finds on the Internet.
Squishy Wizard: Sophia has great Magic and Agility, and her skillset is built to deal damage with Bless spells and provide potent healing, but her HP and Endurance are fairly low.
Stripperiffic: Pandora wears a pair of black straps that leave little to the imagination.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Yoshizawa from Royal:
- Both are redheads who sport a "ponytail"^note in their Metaverse outfits and specialize in the Bless element, while also being decent healers. They both also share Arcana from the Visconti-Sforza deck (Yoshizawa is Faith, while Sophia is Hope).
- Both are also closer to Joker than to the other Thieves, Yoshizawa in an emotional sense of him being her most trusted friend, Sophia in a physical sense of being inside his phone.
- Both have a pseudo-Awakening relatively early followed by a later true Awakening. In Sumire's case, she couldn't completely awaken Cendrillion because she still thought she was Kasumi, while Sophia's Pithos is not a Persona, but a weapon specifically created to mimic one. Sumire is only able to truly remove her mask when she accepts her true identity, while Sophia only awakened to an actual Persona when she defies her programming and her creator Ichinose.
- Both of them are "inferior" versions of another character in the story of their respective games, but Sophia was supposedly a Flawed Prototype of the Demiurge AI that runs the EMMA app, only for EMMA to be the real inferior one. In the same vein, "Kasumi" is actually her inferior sister Sumire, because Sumire didn't fully realize her talents.
- Both characters are manipulated by a Hidden Villain ally, and are forced against their will to fight against the Phantom Thieves.
Tarot Motifs: The Hope Arcana from the Visconti-Sforza deck, representing hope, optimism, and positivity. This is reflected with both of her Personas; Pithos and Pandora, as in Greek myth when Pandora opened the pithos (or box, depending on the telling) containing all the evils of the world, the only thing remaining inside the box was Hope. Joker first encounters Sophia while she's in the form of a giant box and then takes the form of a girl thanks to Joker's wishes and claims that her mission is to become a friend to humanity.
Token Mini-Moe: Futaba has a head or two over Sophia, and Futaba is only five feet tall. She'd easily be the shortest member of the Thieves if it weren't for Morgana.
Virtual Sidekick: She is a rather unusual case, as she does have a "physical" body while in the Metaverse and can serve as a proper party member. When out of the Metaverse, she inhabits Joker's smartphone and basically acts like an extremely knowledgeable guide and shopping manager, but is incapable of helping with anything physical.
Vocal Evolution: For most of the game, Sophia speaks in a stilted Machine Monotone with only minor hints of inflections, similar to a digital assistant artificial intelligence. However, after she awakens to Pandora and gains a heart, this is completely dropped and she speaks in a much more natural, human-like way.
White Mage: She learns both Light elemental attacks and a good amount of healing spells, and is even decked out in all white to boot.
Wrong Context Magic: Pithos is treated in-game as Sophia's Persona, but it comes literally out of nowhere with no awakening, Pithos bears no arcana of its own, and every skill it earns is followed by a question mark (i.e. Kouga? Dia?). In Sophia's own words, she is simply mimicking the Phantom Thieves. Subverted when Sophia has a proper awakening and gains Pandora, which removes the question marks.
You Didn't Ask: Sophie casually brings out her "Persona" shortly after Joker, Ryuji, and Morgana first meet her. When asked why she didn't mention that she was a Persona user, Sophia mentions that nobody asked her about it. The same goes for her being an AI, if Joker questions her about it after leaving the Metaverse for the first time.

Zenkichi Hasegawa / "Wolf"

Arcana: V. Priest (Japan)/Apostle (English)

Persona: Valjean

Weapons: Large swords and dual revolvers

Voiced by: Shin-ichiro Miki (Japanese), Tom Taylorson (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/persona5strikers_zenkichi_hasegawa.png

^{Click here to see Wolf}
^{Click here to see Valjean}

Valjean: "Do you finally see the truth? Do you know the true face of the guilty? They condemn the good to slavery. Pretend they do not see their agony. ...Just as you once did. But another story must begin. Now, show your gaolers that you will wear a different chain. I am thou, thou art I... If you yet seek true justice, we will see it done!"

Zenkichi: "Fine. Seal the contract...VALJEAN!!! I know what I have to do now. Condemn the evil, and hunt them down!"

An inspector from the Kyoto Prefectural Police's Public Security Department who appeared in front of the Phantom Thieves right before they went to summer vacation in order to arrest them for the change of hearts case a few years ago, which is suspect for a brand new incident. While they are still allowed on vacation, he has to monitor them, effectively putting them on probation. However, in truth, he is using it to investigate the case further in hopes of finding the true culprit rather than believing the Thieves were responsible for the incidents.

His Persona is Valjean, after the titular protagonist from Les Misérables, awakened after confronting his daughter's shadow self. Valjean was a young man sentenced to a five-year prison term after stealing for his starving niece. After multiple escape attempts, Valjean becomes conflicted from the cynicism of being labeled an unwanted criminal by society, and the hope he finds in helping others less fortunate, such as his young ward Cosette. Valjean was constantly on the run from Inspector Javert, his Arch-Nemesis who has a blind view towards justice. As a Persona, Valjean appears as a chained knight wearing formal clothes underneath.

Accomplice by Inaction: He's viewed this way by the Shadow of his daughter Akane, who thinks that he ignored his responsibilities as a police officer when Zenkichi abandoned his investigation into Owada out of fear for her safety. Shadow Akane points out that it wasn't just her who suffered, as the family of the innocent man who was framed for the crime also had to endure it. The Phantom Thieves rebuke this accusation, reminding him that he should not be ashamed of what he did to protect his daughter, and not abandon his belief in justice. His Persona, Valjean, represents his promise to never again turn a blind eye to the suffering of others.
Action Dad: Father to Akane Hasegawa, and the first parent in the entire Shin Megami Tensei series or Persona spinoff series to become a front-line Persona user and party member. His daughter is also the reason he awakened Valjean in the first place.
Adults Are Useless: Defied.
- From a story perspective, Zenkichi proves himself to be a competent and valuable asset to the Phantom Thieves. He gives them much-needed help even when the Thieves had little reason to trust him; he hooks them up with nice hotels, tells them to take breaks and enjoy their summer break, and at one point he even saves their lives from the rioting of brainwashed Okinawa residents since he realized something was wrong. Zenkichi even shouted to the Thieves to escape when the police showed up to falsely arrest them in their hotel, which gets him arrested.
- From a gameplay perspective, Zenkichi also averts Late Character Syndrome since his level matches Joker's when he joins, and his specialties in Almighty damage, Gun damage, and status buffs (most notably Heat Riser and Debilitate) mean that he can pull his weight just as much as any other Phantom Thief.
Affectionate Nickname: "Gramps" eventually evolves into this as the Phantom Thieves warm up to him. One of his lines upon winning a battle has him use it as an Appropriated Appellation.
And Now for Someone Completely Different: When the Phantom Thieves (bar Futaba) are captured by Shadow Akane, Zenkichi briefly replaces Joker as the main player character when he comes to rescue them and receiving his own Persona, after which he fully becomes playable as a Phantom Thief himself.
Antiquated Linguistics: His Shadow, on top of using lines straight from Les Misérables, uses the incredibly outdated term "gaol" instead of the modern "jail" in the subtitles, which are pronounced the same.
Awesome McCoolname: After meeting him, Futaba laments that a name like "Zenkichi Hasegawa" is wasted on a police officer that the Phantom Thieves are still extremely untrusting of.
Badass Normal: Even before gaining a Persona, Zenkichi was pretty badass in his own right. He proves to be a useful ally to the Phantom Thieves by providing them with information, effortlessly punches out several people when they try to attack him, and snuck through Akane's jail to rescue the thieves despite knowing he'd likely die if a Shadow found him.
Battle Cry: "Strike them, Valjean!"
Becoming the Mask: Downplayed. If the Phantom Thieves showed any signs of hiding evidence, he was ordered to arrest them. He had no intentions of betraying or harming the teens, but his job as an investigator came first and foremost, even if it meant using the Phantom Thieves. Over time, Zenkichi comes to care for them greatly, especially after they help his daughter Akane. This leads to him taking the fall for them during the impulsive police raid in Kyoto, and becomes a Phantom Thief in his own right to fight against Konoe and later the Mastermind.
Beach Bury: During the Okinawa trip, he gets this from the Thieves, making him look like the Venus de Milo. Naturally, he bursts out in anger upon realizing this and starts chasing his pranksters while threatening to arrest them.
BFS: As Wolf, his melee weapon of choice is a large two-handed sword that's almost as tall as he is.
Birds of a Feather: Because of the similarities between him and Makoto's father (policemen who are single fathers after losing their wives), as well as Makoto aspiring to follow in her father's footsteps, Zenkichi bonds with Makoto most out of all the Phantom Thieves.
Blackmail:
- Got hit by this two years ago when he tried to investigate his wife's death, getting a death threat directed against his daughter, which forced him to drop the case. Justified, as the culprit is Jyun Owada, a politician with connections to Shido. Based on Shido being so powerful during that time, the threats definitely wouldn't have been empty had he continued his investigation then.
- He blackmails the Phantom Thieves by forcing them to make a deal with him or he'll turn them over to the authorities.
Broken Pedestal: To his daughter Akane, for not looking into the death of her mother. As it turned out, he tried, but stopped after The Conspiracy threatened Akane. By the time he reveals this, unfortunately, Akane has become so consumed by wrath that she views this as only an act of cowardice. It becomes a case of Rebuilt Pedestal after her Shadow's defeat allows them to reconcile.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: While he's a genuinely talented police officer, any respect this might earn from the Phantom Thieves gets offset by how dorky he comes off as when he's trying to look cool.
Futaba: Zenkichi’s really doing his job! It’s almost like he’s an actual cop or something!
Zenkichi: I AM an actual cop!
(later)
Ryuji: Daamn Gramps, you really are a sleuth, aren'tcha? You should be on one of those cop shows!
Zenkichi: I'm already a cop in real life, genius!
But Now I Must Go: After the Demiurge's defeat, he departs from the thieves in order to ensure Owada's arrest. Despite this, he promises to always be there for the thieves should they ever need him.
Butt-Monkey: He gets pranked and teased quite often due to his age and physical appearance, with the PTs never missing a chance to remind him of how he looks shady as hell. He also has a tendency to land into embarrassing situations before he unlocks his Persona, such as completely losing his marbles when shown a Jail for the first time. When asleep at the beach with the Thieves, Zenkichi gets sand placed around him so that he can't move when he wakes up. All of it is played for comedy. This is reflected with Zenkichi having an even worse Luck stat than Ryuji and Yusuke.
Cast from Hit Points: Activating Wolf's Fury Mode in the Metaverse will cause his attacks to deal more damage and greatly increase their range. This comes at the cost of taking away some of his HP every so often.
Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Whenever the group asks him about his family, he always dodges the question by switching to other subjects.
Chained by Fashion: Valjean wears cages around his head, chest, hands, and legs. This is a nod to his inspiration's criminal past.
Composite Character: Of Sojiro Sakura and Sae Niijima, as both of them were Demoted to Extra. Zenkichi acts like the Team Dad of the group like Sojiro did, and ends being the biggest ally to the Phantom Thieves within the law enforcement in this game like Sae was.
Cool Old Guy: Idle dialogue during the Osaka boss fight indicates he's in his forties, yet he's perfectly capable of keeping pace with a group of fighters under half his age. He's also the oldest Persona user in the entire Shin Megami Tensei series.
Cowboy Cop: Has this aesthetic as Wolf, reflecting how his rebellion is to hunt down the guilty even if the law protects them.
Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: The reason he was so cold and standoffish to Akane — even calling her a "burden" at one point — was to keep her safe, as Zenkichi was being threatened to drop the investigation into his wife's murder or else Akane would die. Shadow Akane doesn't buy this as an excuse, calling him out as a coward.
Dark Is Not Evil: Despite his black suit and shady appearance, Zenkichi is a good man who eventually becomes a member of the Phantom Thieves.
Delayed Reaction: He takes a while to process all of the crazy things that happen in the Metaverse.
Disproportionate Retribution: Played for Laughs. After the Thieves cover him with a "Birth of Venus" style sand sculpture while he's asleep, he angrily chases after them and demands they stand still so he can arrest them.
Dub Name Change: The localization changed his Arcana from Priest to Apostle.
Easily Forgiven: He eventually admits to the Phantom Thieves that he initially was just using them to solve the change of hearts epidemic so that he could get his boss a promotion. Rather than be angry in any way, they're completely sympathetic to him due to him wanting his boss to reform the crooked justice system that prevented him from outing Owada as his wife's murderer. It certainly helps that he sacrificed himself to save them from the impulsive police raid in Kyoto beforehand.
Embarrassing Nickname: He dislikes the Phantom Thieves addressing him as "Gramps" because of his age.
Empowered Badass Normal: He starts out as badass due to his police training, but useless in the Metaverse. After he confronts his daughter's shadow and awakens Valjean, he becomes a full-fledged Phantom Thief.
Establishing Character Moment: Zenkichi gets two; one for when the player is introduced to him, and one for when the Phantom Thieves are.
- During a PubSec briefing about the "change of heart" epidemic, Zenkichi is shown silently listening at the back of the room until they mention an incident where the Director-General for Criminal Affairs stripped down naked and ran around the precinct. Zenkichi barely manages to stifle his laughter at the debriefing, showing that he's not as cold-hearted as the police we saw in the previous game.
- The Phantom Thieves meet Zenkichi when he stops the plastered suit that was harassing them, introducing himself as their "Knight in Shining Armor" and laying the drunk out, complete with a quip, when he takes a swing at him. When the suit's much less sloshed employee threatens to call the police, Zenkichi flashes his badge and states that he is the police, establishing him as a well-meaning and competent cop who tries a little too hard to look cool, and a rather unlucky cop at that, since the suit's employee booked it, abandoning his boss.
Evil Laugh: His Shadow/Persona does this to him as its giving him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
Expy: Gameplay-wise, he is something of a fusion of Shinjiro from Persona 3 and Naoto from Persona 4, being a Persona user with no elemental strengths or weaknesses that also specializes purely in physical and non-elemental skills and uses revolvers for ranged attacks.
Face of a Thug: He looks very shady with that long hair and sly face, but he's no villain to begin with, siding with the Phantom Thieves to the very end.
Fair Cop: A downplayed case, but for all the jokes directed at his age, shady looks, and goofiness, Zenkichi is actually quite handsome, tall and dashing for a policeman; most apparent whenever he channels his more confident and suave Wolf alter-ego.
First-Name Basis: Much like Futaba with Sojiro, the Phantom Thieves (eventually) take to referring to him by his first name, despite the age gap and their lack of familial ties. He considers it to be an upgrade from them simply calling him "old man" or "Gramps" all the time.
Freak Out: His first visit to the Metaverse is riffled with this, to the amusement of the Phantom Thieves. Even after he gets his bearings together, he still believes he may have drunk something weird or got so focused on the case that he lost his mind.
Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse:
- His reasoning when the Phantom Thieves began to falter in their belief when they learned of Mariko Hyodo's Start of Darkness. Yes, she was scapegoated by a senator vying for her job as mayor of Sapporo for the death of a child caused by a collapsed ice sculpture, and was blackmailed by said senator's accomplice into inaction by passive-aggressively threatening her that he'd tell the police she told him to use faulty ordinance, but she's still responsible for Sapporo and using EMMA is not helping her.
- After explaining to Akane that he was ultimately blackmailed into not arresting Owada for his wife's murder, Akane isn't satisfied with this excuse. Her Shadow points out that Zenkichi left the family of a falsely-accused secretary with guilt and shame over a crime they didn't commit. That being said, Akane was Brainwashed and Crazy at that time, and the Phantom Thieves defend that prioritizing the safety of a loved one is never an inexcusable crime. Zenkichi himself also admits he really messed this up and resolves to get better.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Due to being the in-universe Suspiciously Similar Substitute to Akechi, it takes a while for the Thieves to actually warm up to Zenkichi because they are convinced he's working his own angle and will betray them. It isn't until around the time of the second Jail that they realize he isn't a bad guy, and by the time they leave for the fourth Jail, they are more or less turned around in their views on him. When he awakens to Valjean, they welcome him as one of their own.
Glass Cannon: Activating his Fury stance turns him into this, making his combos more damaging and longer-ranged at the cost of his HP every few seconds. This is intended to be offset by his melee/gun attacks causing Life Drain when Fury is deactivated.
Good Is Not Soft: Even after finally officially joining the Phantom Thieves, Zenkichi tends to take this stance when the others empathize with the various Monarchs. When they learn the source of Konoe's trauma, that he was a victim of child abuse and his father even killed his mother, Zenkichi reminds the Thieves that what happened to him doesn't justify what he is doing now.
Guns Akimbo: He wields twin Smith & Wesson No. 3 revolvers.
Heroes Prefer Swords: He joins the Phantom Thieves to save his daughter and take down the person responsible, and his weapon is a two-handed sword.
Heroic Self-Deprecation: He doesn't think highly of himself as a police officer due to the long hours and schedules that keep him from seeing his daughter Akane, and how Owada (heavily implied to be taking advantage of his ties with Shido) blackmailed him by threatening Akane's if he kept investigating his wife's murder. He tries to discourage Makoto from pursuing the profession, but after a heart to heart with the Phantom Thieves when going through Akane's Jail, he gains a renewed sense of self and vows to fight on.
Improbable Weapon User: One of his equippable weapons is a street sign, which is a pretty solid late-game weapon if you get it as soon as possible until you can find superior ones.
Implacable Man: While he starts out as a Jack of All Stats, Valjean evolves into this by the endgame whose skills mesh well with Zenkichi's playstyle to make him a nigh-unstoppable attacker. He has powerful buffs and debuffs that target just one person (Heat Riser, Debilitate), powerful physical skills (One-Shot Kill, Agneyastra) that he can spam thanks to his Life Draining normal attacks, passive skills that ensure he keeps fighting (Enduring Soul, Firm Stance) and of course the Megido skills.
Insult of Endearment: The Phantom Thieves continue to call him "Gramps" even after warming up to him. In turn, he calls them "damn kids" rather than Phantom Thieves before leaving.
Irony: He is a cop, but his Persona is Jean Valjean, who was at odds with the original Inspector Javert... who his daughter behaves like.
Jack of All Stats: Zenkichi has no resistances or weaknesses to any elements; he also uses Almighty spells as his primary magic element, which likewise isn't resisted by anything but doesn't exploit any weakness, though it can hit for Technical damage against Dizzy opponents. His stats are balanced in the middle of all the Phantom Thieves (with a slight edge in Strength). His skillset is fairly versatile with a mix of Almighty spells, Physical and Gun skills, and access to all three buff skills and Debilitate later on.
Jerkass Has a Point: In Sapporo, while relations between him and the Phantom Thieves are tense, he says Mariko is responsible for her own actions and should take responsibility for the tragedy that caused a child's death, because she's the top authority. The Phantom Thieves are offended, but realize he has a point, and Mariko does just that after her change of heart.
Justice Will Prevail: Thanks to both Makoto's optimism about the law, as well as his Persona Valjean encouraging him, Zenkichi declares that he'll punish the guilty, and "hunt them down" if the guilty try to stop him.
Kubrick Stare: The official artwork for his civilian attire shows him doing this.
The Lancer: In contrast to Ryuji, who serves as a Foil to Joker in regards to personality and demeanour, Zenkichi contrasts Joker, and by extension the others, by possessing a more cynical and pragmatic mindset as opposed to their more idealistic ones, such as when the group is agonizing over whether or not to target Mariko due to her Freudian Excuse, he outright tells them to suck it up and that, while she undoubtedly has tragic reasons for her actions, it was partially due to her own negligence and it doesn't change the fact that she's hurting people in the present as a result, which the Thieves find hard to deny and is ultimately what gives them the final push. Later on, when Ichinose Brainwashes Sophie into attacking the Thieves, Zenkichi pushes for the others to fight back when they prove reluctant since if they get killed, there will be no one to stop the Ark of the Covenant. This is even shown in-game in the fight against Sophie: Zenkichi's AI is the only one who will actively try and attack her, while the other AI characters only try to avoid Sophie's attacks.
Last-Name Basis: In contrast to Akechi, he refers to all the Phantom Thieves by their surnames, but they call him by his first name, though that takes a bit, since they eagerly called him "Gramps" to take the piss.
Late Character Syndrome: Averts this. Despite being a late-game party member, in a New Game Plus he is playable from the start of the game, and due to his skillset having Almighty damage and party buffs, he can pull his weight in nearly any situation. Additionally, his level matches Joker's once Zenkichi joins the Thieves.
Life Drain: His melee and gun attacks have this whenever Fury is inactive. This is intended to balance out Fury draining his hitpoints when active. One of his Mastery Arts improves the drain.
Ma'am Shock: While he is aware of his age, being in his forties in comparison to the rest of the Phantom Thieves, Hasegawa is exasperated every time the Thieves call him an old man, stating that he isn't that old.
Meaningful Name: Like Haru, Zenkichi chooses his codename, "Wolf", for a personal reason. He compares his past self to a dog barking on the command of his apathetic superiors and decides that those days are over, committing himself to hunting down all evil "lone wolf or not."
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: By dint of primarily using Almighty attacks, Zenkichi is unique among the thieves in that he can't exploit weaknesses but isn't resisted by anything. He also has no weaknesses of his own, but no resistances either.
More Dakka: His Showtime attack has him unleashing a hail of bullets upon enemies. He's also the only Thief to learn Gun Skills besides Joker and Haru.
My Greatest Failure: Being unable to properly investigate and avenge his wife's death. After getting hit with a blackmail threat against his daughter's life, he halted the investigation. Justified, since the culprit of that incident has ties with Masayoshi Shido, who was more or less controlling the entire Metaverse and considered untouchable during that time, so if Zenkichi actually tried to investigate, things would have gotten ugly fast and end horrifically. Unfortunately, even after Shido was discredited, it still puts a strain on his and Akane's relationship, to the point she blinded herself with hatred towards Zenkichi and embraced the ideals of the Phantom Thieves. Zenkichi in turn views himself as a failure, both as a police investigator and a father. This lasts until the Phantom Thieves convince him that he is far from cowardly by putting Akane's safety first, and his own Shadow convinces him that it's time to act and wake up to justice.
Mythology Gag:
- The black-colored cowboy attire he wears in the Metaverse seems to be a reference to an early concept for Black Mask which similarly had him dressed in a dark-colored cowboy outfit.
- His role as a father figure who looks out for the Phantom Thieves can be viewed as a throwback to Sojiro's role in the original game, which is further emphasized by both Hasegawa and Sojiro being fathers themselves (paternal in the former's case, and adoptive in the latter's), as well as Hasegawa's Apostle Arcana being a counterpart to Sojiro's Hierophant. He also has an estranged relationship with his daughter just like Dojima and Nanako due to a hit-and-run killing their family matriarch.
Naïve Newcomer: His initial Freak Out to the Metaverse existing, learning Morgana is a talking cat, Sophie's existence, and then his eventual ascension to Phantom Thief while still unaware of the terms the Thieves use within the Metaverse make him this. By the end, though he is a bit naive to their actions, he starts getting used to their easygoing attitudes because he starts having faith in their actions as veterans.
Non-Elemental: He specializes in attacks with the Almighty attribute, and is the only in game character other than Joker to have access to Almighty skills. Notably, he is the first Persona user since Shinjiro Aragaki and Metis to bear a Persona with no elemental strengths or weaknesses.
Not So Similar: To Goro Akechi, who like Akechi is a detective. When Zenkichi offers to ally with the Phantom Thieves and help them prove their innocence, they all assume that Zenkichi is going to betray them like Akechi did. However Zenkichi proved the Phantom Thieves wrong as Zenkichi proved himself to be loyal to them even turning against the police to save him and eventually has a Persona of his own thus becoming an official member of the Phantom Thieves. Also while they both desire to bring about a Corrupt Politician's downfall (Shido and Owada respectively), Akechi was much more selfish in his revenge willing to go against the Phantom Thieves so that he may be the only one to defeat Shido, while Zenkichi truly wants to bring Owada to justice and by cooperating with the Phantom Thieves, Zenkichi was able to succeed where Akechi failed.
Oh, Crap!: He reacts with shock twice in a row:
- Akane calls him about visiting his wife's grave when he's driving the group to Kyoto.
- He accidentally lets it slip that he has a daughter when the group asks who was calling him.
Older Than They Look: Despite the old man jokes and having much harsher sharper facial features than the teenaged thieves, Zenkichi is relatively spry and fresh faced looking for a guy who mentions himself to be in his 40s.
Only Sane Man: As the only adult of the group, he's constantly exasperated by the teens' antics as they enjoy their summer break, especially prevalent when he's dealing with Ryuji, Yusuke, Futaba or Haru.
Papa Wolf: Puns aside, he's very protective of his daughter and later the Phantom Thieves, even if he has a hard time expressing it. He's understandably pissed at Konoe for forcibly making his daughter a Jail Monarch and using her as a means to eliminate the Phantom Thieves, and makes sure he throws it at his face after the Thieves take down Shadow Konoe. Zenkichi even ends up Taking the Bullet for the Phantom Thieves by warning them when a police raid is about to close in on them, allowing the kids to escape while Zenkichi takes the fall and gets arrested.
Parents as People: He does care about Akane, though he's clearly struggling with caring for her on his own, which is made even harder by the fact that Akane deeply resents him for not looking into the death of her mother. His frustrations with Akane also reached a peak in the past where he outright referred to her as a burden (though that was at least in part to distance himself from her to keep her safe), estranging them even more.
Police Brutality: Gets hit by this despite being a police officer himself. After he is arrested for aiding the Phantom Thieves, Zenkichi has his head pressed against the table by his interrogator and is threatened with even worse torture methods if he does not give up the Phantom Thieves' location, but he takes it like a champ.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Receives one during his awakening from his Shadow/Persona, who basically calls him a coward who sold his justice for comfort, making him no better than Owada. He cops to it, but the Phantom Thieves tell him You Are Better Than You Think You Are.
Reassigned to Antarctica: He used to live in Tokyo with his family and was reassigned somewhere else to keep him away from his wife's hit-and-run case. Somewhat Downplayed in that he was able to choose where he was reassigned to and he picked Kyoto because that's where his parents-in-law lived. He even got the house next to theirs so they could keep an eye on their granddaughter.
Redeeming Replacement: Symbolically, he serves as this to the law enforcement in the original Persona 5 game, who were portrayed as incompetent at best and maliciously corrupt at worst. Zenkichi is there to show the Phantom Thieves and the players that honest policemen with a sense of duty and justice do exist.
Red Herring: With facial features resembling Masayoshi Shido, long hair, and heavily unkempt clothes, combined with an incredibly uncomposed and shady-looking stature, Zenkichi doesn't look like a trustworthy person to begin with. Combined with him being the head inspector in charge of finding evidence for the Phantom Thieves' involvement in the recent mass Change of Hearts and their general distrust for him during the start of the game, you may think that he's going to be a major antagonist. He isn't and he actually becomes loyal to your cause.
Revolvers Are Just Better: In his Wolf outfit, Zenkichi uses dual Smith & Wesson No. 3 Russian revolvers.
Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: After the Phantom Thieves are being framed for the murder of Shuzo Ubukata, Zenkichi confronts Kaburagi over how suspicious it is since they had never killed anyone before and Konoe and the Commissioner General are suddenly involved with this. When his boss refuses to listen, Zenkichi decides to alert the group of the trap and is arrested as a result.
Shout-Out: Zenkichi's Phantom Thief design has multiple references to Les Misérables.
- His code name "Wolf" is the word used to label criminals in the novel.
- His Persona, Valjean, is based on the novel's main character Jean Valjean, and has the number "24601" printed on him, referencing Valjean's prison inmate number.
- In the English version of his Persona awakening, Valjean's lines include direct references to song lyrics from the Les Miserables musical.
Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Zenkichi has a rather cynical view on justice, especially in what the police can actually do about catching criminals. This conflicts with the more idealistic Thieves a couple of times through the story.
- The Phantom Thieves struggle to send Mariko, the third Monarch, a calling card due to them sympathizing with her motives. Zenkichi, upon learning about this, calls them out on their indecision and mentions that it is childish to believe in "absolute good and evil."
- During their trip to Kyoto, he starts to have a heart-to-heart with Makoto about her future career goals. Zenkichi actually tries to talk her out of becoming a cop (much less one who hopes to rise through the ranks and reform the system) because, in his opinion, the reality is there are too much red tape and conflicting interest that prevents them from truly helping society.
- Eventually the story reveals that Zenkichi's idealism got beat out of him. After his wife was killed in a manslaughter by Owada, and Owada used his connections to both cover up his crime and blackmail Zenkichi into not pursuing further investigations, Zenkichi gave into cynicism. It's not until he was finally confronted with his failures when facing Shadow Akane and awakening his own persona, did his old idealism return.
Sixth Ranger: Unlike Sophia and the rest of the Thieves who are playable since the game's beginning, Zenkichi only awakens his Persona and becomes playable starting in the Kyoto Jail, slightly over halfway into the game. He also shakes up the party formula by being a grown adult, parent, and police inspector, all of which have traditionally been either targets and/or opponents of the Phantom Thieves in some way.
Sixth Ranger Traitor: The story leans into this, with Zenkichi's parallel with Akechi, making it intentionally ambiguous just how honest Zenkichi is being with the Phantom Thieves. It's finally revealed by the time the group reached Okinawa, that Zenkichi has been instructed to use the group as scapegoats if his investigation reaches a dead-end. By this point in the story, Zenkichi has grown attached to the Thieves and is conflicted on what to do. He ultimately decides to remain loyal to the Thieves.
Smoking Barrel Blowout: Blows the smoke off one of his revolvers at the end of his Showtime.
Stepford Snarker: Zenkichi provides much of the comic relief in the game but he also hides most of his tragic circumstances behind his sarcastic personality.
Super Cop: He's an inspector from PubSec who is also a Persona-user and The Sixth Ranger of the Phantom Thieves.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
- He's this to Akechi. Both of them are investigators who initially oppose the Phantom Thieves but end up allying with them later on, and both have Metaverse outfits that are primarily dark in color and use guns as their main weapon in battle. The brim of Hasegawa's hat resembles a sharp beak and the collar of his coat reaches up to his hat, giving an appearance similar to the helmet and neck brace that Akechi wears in his Black Mask costume. He even has an ability called "Fury" which functions similarly to Akechi's psychotic breakdown abilities and the Desperation skill he uses during the second phase of his boss battle. He also has access to Almighty skills like Akechi, though unlike him, he solely specializes in Almighty and Physical/Gun skills and never gets any Bless/Curse skills.
- He's also this to Sojiro (who does still show up in the beginning, but moves Out of Focus when the Phantom Thieves go on their road trip across Japan). He's a cynical and grouchy but kind-hearted middle-aged single dad who's associated with the Bureau of Public Safety (Sojiro was retired, while Zenkichi's still on active duty), and forms an Intergenerational Friendship with the protagonists after a rocky beginning. Also, his increasingly bewildered reactions to the madness occurring around him provide a steady stream of comic relief, and his daughter becomes a target for the Phantom Thieves under complicated and unusual circumstances.
- To Dojima from Persona 4, as a widowed police officer with a strained relationship with his daughter, with said daughter falling victim to the supernatural because of a Red Herring culprit's ignorance. Unlike Nanako, however, Akane is more than willing to call him out.
Sword Beam: Capable of sending waves of energy from his sword in Fury mode. A Master Art lets him imbue the waves with an Almighty affinity.
Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: He was supposed to arrest the Phantom Thieves for the Jail incidents but offers them a chance to prove their innocence by investigating them instead. Downplayed, since he's actually no antagonist to begin with.
Tarot Motifs: He's the Apostle, which is really a renamed Hierophant from the Thoth deck. In Japanese, this specific Hierophant is referred to as the Shinkan (神官), meaning "Priest". This rename is due to the Hierophant card of the Thoth deck portraying a pagan spiritual leader rather than the traditional Hierophant (the Catholic Pope) or Houou (法王), due to deck creator Aleister Crowley's criticism toward the Church. As such, there are plenty of parallels between him, Sojiro, and Dojima, the two previous Hierophants.
Team Dad: He slowly grows more attached to the teens the longer he spends time with them, to the point he takes the fall when the police move to arrest them. After he gains his persona and the Phantom Thieves' full trust, he starts to look out for them even more and embraces their cause. It's worth emphasizing that while he isn't the first adult to support them as Sojiro and Sae have been doing it for far longer, he is the first adult that is exposed to the Thieves' otherworldly battles and eventually joins them with his own Persona and Thief regalia.
To Be Lawful or Good:
- When the Kyoto Prefectural Police was mobilized to arrest the Phantom Thieves^note, Zenkichi calls out his superior for making the arrest without any hard evidence that can used. He decides to let the team go in spite of the risk of him being arrested for helping them evade arrest.
- Over the course of the game, it's revealed that his superior, Miyako Kaburagi ultimately plans to use the Phantom Thieves as scapegoats if Zenkichi's investigation falls short. Zenkichi for his part is conflicted about this because deny as he might, he's grown attached to the kids.
Token Adult: Hasegawa is the only playable adult Persona user in the game^note, the first adult party member in the series since Eternal Punishment, and the first Persona user who is a father. He's also the overall oldest party member in the series at the time of his game, eclipsing the 32 year old Baofu of the aforementioned Persona 2 by around a decade.
Welcomed to the Masquerade: Once the Phantom Thieves learn to trust Hasegawa, they introduce him to the Metaverse, if only to make him understand their methods. His reactions to appropriately Freak Out about all the supernatural nonsense and questions if he drank too much the previous night.
Whole Costume Reference: His thief outfit consisting of a distinctive wide brim-pointed hat, black clothes with multiple belts and a scarf, and a longsword are a reference to the popular Japanese franchise Vampire Hunter D. His codename "Wolf" can also bring to mind the costume from Brotherhood of the Wolf.
Would Hit a Girl: When Sophia is being controlled, he advocates taking her out rather than risk being defeated themselves. In the boss fight that occurs, he's the only one who will actively try and fight back.

Antagonists

Jail Monarchs

See here for all tropes related to the Jail Monarchs

The Lock Keepers

Lock Keepers in general

Located in hidden areas in the Monarch's city, in areas called Trauma Cells, a powerful Shadow and the Anthropomorphic Personification of the Jail Monarch's Dark Secret, which protects the lock on the Monarch's main tower.

Achilles' Heel: All of the Lock Keepers are weak to Bless and Curse skills. They also have the same other weaknesses as the Monarch they are attached to, such as Alice's being weak to Fire and Wind skills.
Anthropomorphic Personification: Of the Jail Monarch's emotional scar and Dark Secret that caused them to turn to EMMA for "salvation". It's their job to make sure the Monarch remains trapped by their trauma and cannot be freed to move on and stop using EMMA.
Asshole Victim: The people the Lock Keepers represent have been taken care of off-screen by the Monarchs using their powers to destroy their lives, or in the case with Konoe's, has long-since died.
- The Alpha Bitch who came back to humiliate Alice lost her boyfriend and her reputation was destroyed.
- The Jerkass publishers get ruined when Ango repents.
- The politician who blackmailed Mariko into stepping down is forced to step down himself and the greedy and corrupt civil worker who was really responsible for the little girl's death is dragged down with him.
- Konoe's father tried to murder his son only to be killed by him in self-defense.
Greater-Scope Villain: In a way. They are the source of the Jail Monarch's trauma but aren't dealt with directly; their Lock Keeper selves are robots taking their appearance.
Greed: Actually applies to a majority of them with the exception of Alice's. Ango's editor was secretly using the reputation of Ango's grandfather to fleece the public for money, the civil servant working under Mariko took bribes in exchange for allowing the subpar construction job that resulted in a little girl's death, and Konoe's father straight-up murdered his wife for her money.
Hate Sink: All of the people they represent are real pieces of work, but special mention goes to Akira Konoe's father, who outstrips basically every villain except possibly Shido in pure monstrosity; the only reason he's not a target is because his son got to him first. The Phantom Thieves are absolutely disgusted by him and Ryuji admits that beating up his Lock Keeper self is cathartic. Their encounter with this particular Lock Keeper strengthens their resolve to stop Akira from becoming worse than his father.
Karma Houdini Warranty: For a while, these people managed to get away with destroying the Monarch's lives. By the time the Monarchs gets hold of EMMA, they turned the tables against them, destroyed their lives, or killed them.
Mini-Boss: A powerful one at that. These monsters need to be beaten to send the calling card and face the Jail Monarch. That is with the exception of the Okinawa Lock Keeper, who is just the straight-up boss of the Jail due to its Monarch already being dead.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Each one faced will have four of the same weapon.
- Alice's Lock Keeper wields axes.
- Ango's Lock Keeper wields knives.
- Hyodo's Lock Keeper uses shields.
- The Okinawa Lock Keeper uses a combination of axes, knives, and shields, and is the only one who also fights with is bare hands.
- The Osaka Lock Keeper uses Grenade Launchers.

Lock Keeper of Shibuya

A Lock Keeper taking the form of the girl who, with her fellow Alpha Bitches ruined Alice's life at Shujin so hard, she expunged the fact that she ever attended Shujin wiped off the records. The girl would then return to Alice's life in their adult years after Alice began her career as a designer, spreading Slut-Shaming rumors and pushing Alice to become a Monarch to finally get her revenge.

Green-Eyed Monster: It's implied that she's jealous of Alice because a popular boy Shujin confessed to Alice instead of her.
Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: She evidently returned to torment Alice after Alice graduated from Shujin and became a fashion designer, which is what pushed Alice to finally become a Monarch.
Slut-Shaming: How she traumatized her and ruined her attempts at rebuilding her life.
Teens Are Monsters: Given as Shujin is a high school, certainly fits. She didn't get any better upon growing up, though.

Lock Keeper of Sendai

A Lock Keeper taking the form of Ango Natsume's editor, who knows full well Ango's skills are limited, but like Ango is using the kid's grandfather (who was a good author) to fleece the public for money.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The reason Ango was so heartbroken to find out what his editor really thought of his work was that his editor pretended to acknowledge Ango's worth as a writer while talking badly about him behind his back.
Caustic Critic: His Boss Banter consists of sadistically harsh critiques towards Ango's prose.
Only in It for the Money: The editor reveals that the only reasons he helped Ango win was to use him as a source of income by riding on his grandfather's name.

Lock Keeper of Sapporo

A Lock Keeper taking the form of a greedy and negligent civil servant working under Mariko, who blamed a tragic ice sculpture accident (in truth caused by a sub-par construction job he was bribed into accepting) that killed a child on Mariko. This drove her to use EMMA to make sure the accident would never repeat.

Manchild: His way of deflecting blame for the accident was by using the incredibly juvenile "but everyone else was doing it" excuse. In general, his Boss Banter sounds like he's throwing a tantrum over having been caught.
Never My Fault: Even though it was his own greed and negligence that caused the death of the child, he forced Hyodo to take full responsibility for it and when confronted about taking bribes by Hyodo herself, he tries to deflect the blame further by claiming everyone working for her was doing it.
Passive-Aggressive Kombat: He, a civil worker with a passive voice, is also a greedy asshole who was willing to cut corners, shows no guilt over getting a little girl killed, and then threatens to take Hyodo down with him by making it seem like she's responsible.
Taking You with Me: Hyodo's Lock Keeper threatens her with this trope, saying he'll make it seem like the embezzlement and collapse was her fault due to paperwork she's signed.

Lock Keeper of Okinawa (Unmarked Spoilers)

A Lock Keeper summoned by EMMA to confront the Thieves, as the Okinawa Monarch is dead.

All Your Powers Combined: The Okinawa Lock Keeper can use the weapons of the previous three Lock Keepers.
Flat Character: Unlike the other Lock Keepers, this Keeper isn't based on an existing person and thus displays no characterization of its own.
The Runt at the End: As the Okinawa monarch is dead, EMMA just summons a generic keeper instead, to the point where it has no dialogue.
The Speechless: Given as it's just a robot, rather than a more standard Lock Keeper, it doesn't say a word.

Lock Keeper of Osaka (Unmarked Spoilers)

A Lock Keeper taking the form of Konoe's father, who was an Abusive Parent to Konoe, murdered his own wife, and was eventually killed in self-defense, pinned by Akira Konoe as a burglary gone wrong.

Abusive Parents: Akira Konoe's father physically abused him and even contemplated murdering him.
Killing in Self-Defense: Akira Konoe did murder his father, but the latter would have done it to his son, and had already killed his wife.
No-Respect Guy: Konoe's father seems to not be at all "respected", and is willing to flat out kill those who he perceives as slighting him, like Konoe's mom.
Lock Keeper: It's like I'm some joke to people... You want to die? Trust me, I'll be glad to get rid of you!
Pater Familicide: Killed his wife over some money and tried to kill his son as well, only for it to end up being the other way around.
Posthumous Character: He's long dead by the present day, having been killed by Akira Konoe in self-defense when Akira was still a child.

Other Targets

The True Culprit (Unmarked Spoilers)

Kuon Ichinose

Voiced by: Yōko Hikasa (Japanese), Kira Buckland (English)

The Instigator

"Someone's handing you the best possible solution-all you have to do is take it and you'll never have a problem again. This isn't about mind control, this is about implementing the best solution for humanity. It just so happens that the most efficient route to the best solution is changing everyone's heart."

Sin: Invidia (Envy)/Cavum (Emptiness)

A mysterious woman who meets the Thieves in a beef barbeque restaurant. She is a researcher working for a university and the creator of both Sophia and EMMA. It is said she shut off her emotions to unknown circumstances and never shed a tear even if her parents, the only people who understood her behavior, died. Due to her relatively abnormal behavior (not responding to other people in general, closing herself in her laboratory even when it's supposed to be closed etc.), other people treated her as if she was some sort of emotionless doll and even she thought that she wasn't human.

Affably Evil: She's this and Faux Affably Evil. Her warm and peppy personality is an act, but her amicability and helpfulness are entirely genuine; she just acts warmer than she naturally is because she wants to fit in and not disturb people, and her creation of EMMA was made in the genuine belief she was helping people.
Anti-Villain: At her core, Ichinose is a deeply lonely woman who has been embittered and isolated from society for so long she's lost sight of what even she wants, but hasn't actually grown to blame humanity for her situation; everything she does is based in the desire to help others, but her inability to read people empathetically means she doesn't understand she's making things worse.
Berserk Button:
- Questioning her supposed inability to feel emotions and her inability to connect to people, or criticizing EMMA's plans, is the one thing that is guaranteed to get an emotional reaction from her, at first - specifically, anger.
- She also doesn't like to interact with Sophia either. Given that she was made to help Ichinose understand the heart, only for Sophia to start pestering her for answers to those questions, it makes sense. While her response to Sophia isn't as unhinged as she does back in her own lab or in the Metaverse, when the party meets her before leaving Sendai and they introduce her to Sophia, she drops off whatever mannerisms she was faking and starts acting lukewarm towards her. She gets over it near the end of the game, however.
Big Bad Ensemble: With Konoe and EMMA. However, unlike any other human antagonist up to this point, she's actually the person who kickstarted the whole Metaverse-based catastrophe when she created EMMA's codebase and sold it to Konoe. She's also fully on board with Konoe's (ethically) dubious dealings with the Metaverse EMMA created. She gets Demoted to Dragon once EMMA starts to gain more and more power.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Zig-Zagged. Despite being a twist villain who acts as the game's equivalent to Adachi and Akechi, her altruism is genuine, but due to her inability to connect to people, extremely misguided until her defeat. She even admits that she knew something is wrong when she saw the people she "saved" with EMMA looked dead. She quickly goes back to being an ally after being confronted and retains her friendliness at the end of the game.
Broken Ace: She's a genius programmer (who's skilled at it enough that Futaba was only able to get past her defensive hacking because Ichinose got distracted by Sophia's Awakening) and a well-versed cognitive psientist, to the point that she was able to create artificial intelligence all by herself, but she's also an emotionally dead wreck with No Social Skills who has no faith in her ability to connect with people or even make decisions for them, hence why she follows EMMA's lead once EMMA develops the ability to set her own priorities and goals.
But Now I Must Go: After the defeat of Demiurge, she decides to leave with her creation Sophia to parts unknown at the end of the game to understand the human heart.
Call-Back: Her creation of Sophia and EMMA to see which AI could understand the human heart better is akin to Yaldabaoth's "game" to put Humanity on Trial using Joker and Akechi as pawns. However, Yaldabaoth's "game" is deliberately rigged for the sake of his entertainment to make sure only he can take full control of the public. In the other hand, Ichinose was rooting for EMMA, but it was out of a fit of rage from Sophia triggering her personal insecurities, and even then EMMA was inferior from the get-go because she wasn't programmed as well as Sophia to fit the job, becoming The Corruptor instead of whatever Ichinose planned for her to do.
Cassandra Truth: At the end of the story, she tries to turn herself in to atone for everything she did, but as there is no evidence to really prove it, no one at the police station believes her (or as how Zenkichi puts it, the police aren't into believing in fairy tales).
Character Tics: Humming the same tune Sophia does. Given she made Sophia, it makes sense.
Create Your Own Hero: She turns out to be the one who created Sophia, who, in-turn, ends up being the one to stop EMMA from taking over humanity and inspire a Heel–Face Turn in Ichinose herself.
Dark and Troubled Past: She hasn't been able to express emotions properly ever since she was a child, and her parents were the only ones to try and help her through it and supported her. However, they abruptly died in unknown circumstances and her inability to properly express her grief combined with her decision to focus on her work, likely to distract herself from said grief, served to creep out her relatives and prompted them to call her "a heartless doll". Ever since then, she's been isolated from others, with people talking behind her back due to how emotionless she came off as and her reluctance to interact with others due to her childhood trauma. In a desperate attempt to understand the heart so she could grow from being a "heartless being", she decided to create an AI whose purpose was to understand the heart, but she instead created Sophie, who instead asked her what a heart is under the reasoning that she had one, unintentionally pressing her Trauma Button over her condition and causing her to think everything she did was All for Nothing. This led to her Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and accepting that she was heartless, deciding to instead research how to make hearts unnecessary by unleashing a full blown supernatural catastrophe in a desperate attempt to ease her loneliness by making so she wasn't the only "heartless one".
The Dragon: She's this to EMMA's Metaverse at the game's final act, putting herself as the penultimate obstacle of the Phantom Thieves.
Dragon-in-Chief: She's loyal to the EMMA application's goals on her own will and isn't controlled; in fact, she actually has full rights over that part of the Metaverse and has full control over its denizens.
Emotionless Girl: Played with. It's stated that she's acting out emotions and she has little-to-no actual ability to emote. About the deepest emotion she normally feels is lashing out whenever someone tells her she needs to understand the human heart in order to judge people - so much so that feeling genuine remorse for the first time is actually something she's overjoyed about, because she doesn't feel so emotionally dead. In reality, however, aside from her difficulty expressing emotions the way others do, she seems to have subconsciously repressed them.
Empty Shell: According to her, at least. Her sense of self is there, but she's so detached from it - whether she knows it or not - that she scrapes the surface of being this. It's bad enough that she doesn't seem to have a Persona, or even a Shadow. The moment anyone makes her feel uncertain about her path, however, or the moment Sophia shows up...
Everyone Has Standards: Kuon Ichinose, a woman who describes herself as an emotionless doll, was able to look at the eyes of the people her app "saved" and determine that they seemed cold enough as to be effectively dead. This in fact was the final catalyst of her Heel–Face Turn, causing her to realize that she was wrong about the heart as it relates to both humanity and herself.
Evil Matriarch: In a sense. She's the one who created Sophie and is ultimately the one responsible for EMMA's attempt to sap emotions from humanity. She even goes so far as to try and kill the Phantom Thieves herself, motivated further by jealousy and anger. That being said, Sophie eventually gets her to turn over a new leaf.
Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: She's a beautiful, harmless-looking woman, but she's actually an emotionally detached person who's the true mastermind behind EMMA and the in-game catastrophe surrounding it.
- Somewhat downplayed by the fact that she does want to help people, but because of her inability to understand emotions and humanity, she ends up harming people instead.
Fatal Flaw: An interesting case, where she's aware she has one, but completely misjudged what it is.
- She thinks it's lack of emotion, which is the reason why she even kickstarted the whole thing in the first place, from Sophia to EMMA.
- In reality, it's self-loathing. At her core, Ichinose believes she's an emotionally dead, soulless doll who can't connect or empathize with the world around her at all, and lost faith in her hope of one day understanding it when Sophia was just as clueless to what a heart was as she is, instead deciding to reject it being needed at all. Because of that, she ignores her needs and wants, preventing her from realizing that deep down, she's just lonely and digs herself into a deeper and deeper hole to fill the void in her life rather than confront her issues.
The Fake Cutie: While not exactly acting in the intent of cuteness per se, but more like acting as if she didn't shut off her emotions, her mannerisms pre-reveal are extremely cutesy-ish and Adorkable, but she almost looks as if she was trying too hard that it becomes uncomfortable to watch at best and disturbing at worst. It's Deconstructed however since she's in no means, a bad person, but she's obfuscating emotional warmth to make her easier to interact with.
Faux Affably Evil: Downplayed. Her peppy and loud disposition as well as her friendly personality is just an act. She truly believes that she has no emotions and can't understand them. Said peppiness isn't actually meant to manipulate people, though, as much as it is an attempt to fit in at all, and her desire to help people is genuine like Maruki, although it only resulted in an abomination because her creation cannot actually assess emotions. Therefore, it couldn't see anything across the screen and only considered people asking it for advice, so it just resorted to the most pragmatic answer possible; humanity's greatest desire is when she thinks for them. However, any time EMMA's plan or her true beliefs gets questioned, and especially as Sophia rapidly develops before her eyes, she quickly gets upset.
Foreshadowing:
- The first thing that comes into mind is that her behavior and verbal tics before The Reveal is extremely questionable at best; she just seems too friendly and peppy to be actually genuine.
- After Ango and Alice talked about someone monitoring the Jails, the party goes to a speech by Akira Konoe, then Ichinose comes in because she can hear Ryuji talking about the Phantom Thieves, leading her to suspect that they are, since she also monitors the Jails to observe EMMA's evolution. She wasn't specifically looking for the Phantom Thieves, but she does recognize the Phantom Thieves despite they were masked.
- Furthermore, she knows Konoe personally and she's actually the one to invite him to talk in her university; she even knows the Keyword of Konoe's Jail. It's obvious since she's using him as an accomplice to achieve EMMA's goals of determining the answer to humanity's happiness.
- Ichinose seems be one of those characters who does close to nothing prior to The Reveal while clearly being represented as a major character. You do not personally meet her after leaving Sendai and before The Reveal, to a degree that even after supposedly apprehending the real culprit (Konoe) and everyone was preparing to go back home after an action-packed field trip, she's nowhere to be seen and the party still knows almost nothing about her.
- Here's a rather subtle point. During an early conversation between the Phantom Thieves about stopping Alice, Sophia blatantly advises killing Alice's Shadow. When Ichinose was defeated in the Jail of the Abyss, she asks the Phantom Thieves to kill her out of guilt, indicating that is her mindset incorporated within Sophia, despite being a failed prototype of EMMA.
  - Another foreshadowing of Ichinose's true nature on a similar tangent is that when Konoe was urged by EMMA to turn someone close to the Phantom Thieves into a Monarch to use their Jail as bait to capture the Thieves, the app never once told him anything about the person in question, leading him to unknowingly brainwash Akane, who is very clearly underage and doesn't have a clue how a Jail actually works. After Ichinose briefly took control of Sophia and she drops off a cliff due to a combination of battle fatigue and Fighting from the Inside to defy Ichinose's orders, Yusuke literally calls her "You Monster!" in her face. Her response to this is that she doesn't feel bad about manipulating Sophia because she had no empathy. The idea to manipulate Akane because she was the only one issuing a request for EMMA to save her most likely came from this mindset.
- Probably one of the biggest (and most subtle) dead giveaways is just the fact that she breaks character for a second the first time the Phantom Thieves show her Sophia. You'd think such an apparently peppy, friendly, gung-ho AI researcher would be very interested in the very emotive and mysterious AI that's been aiding the Phantom Thieves, but her voice drops an octave and she says Sophia's name in a very lukewarm fashion before bouncing back to her normal act whilst completely ignoring her. The Phantom Thieves don't really sniff out any abnormalities and it's rather subtle, but it sticks out.
- The biggest giveaway however, is that she has a character portrait and a cut-in for a character that does close to nothing for most of the story, something that is (usually) only reserved for very important characters.
From Nobody to Nightmare: A mentally disturbed woman who was ostracized by society for being "a doll" manages to create a God of Control out of nowhere just because her previous creation triggered her personal Berserk Button.
Genki Girl: Subverted. She speaks in a fast and hyperactive way when she's putting up an act. Even moments before she lets the mask drop, she's enthusiastic and energetic for a while until she starts speaking in her normal, cool and bitter tone.
Go Mad from the Isolation: The constant ostracizing and inability to connect with anyone around her eventually caused her to become a self-loathing misanthrope who hates the fact other people have a heart and she feels she doesn't.
Gondor Calls for Aid: Perhaps the most surprising twist of events in the game. After Sophia awakens Pandora, she manages to convince Ichinose to help the Phantom Thieves' cause to stop EMMA's rampage, and she ends up playing a big part in putting a stop to it.
Greater-Scope Villain: Played with. She is the creator of the EMMA AI, and created her and Sophia to understand human desires, effectively placing her in this position. After EMMA becomes fully sentient and starts warping reality, however, she is willingly Demoted to Dragon, seeing her creation as a much better ruler than herself, before pulling a Heel–Face Turn after Sophie gets her to realize her mistakes.
Green-Eyed Monster: Her sin and motif is envy, because her inability to feel emotions nearly all the time left her with a desire to be capable of doing so but no idea how to do it. However, she's denying that understanding human hearts requires understanding emotions itself, and snaps when Sophia's case proves otherwise, because she's afraid that means she can never truly connect with people. This caused her to outright create a misguided abomination who discards humanity's thought in return for it thinking for them.
Heel–Face Turn: While initially loyal to the Demiurge's goals, once she is defeated by Sophia's Pandora, she understands the importance of a heart and officially assists the Phantom Thieves as an ally. She even tries to turn herself in after everything is said and done, only to fail because there is no evidence to link her to the Change of Heart crimes.
Heel Realization: She is actually the creator of EMMA, with Sophia being the prototype; once being convinced by Sophia, she realizes that EMMA has gone out of control and assists the party against the rogue AI turned False God Demiurge. At the ending, she even admits that she already saw things Gone Horribly Wrong when everyone she "saved" looked almost dead. Consider that these people's appearance was an eye-opener by Ichinose standards, that paints a picture of a clear and present deep-six to the soul that anyone could see, as well as proves once and for all that she herself is a truly living person as opposed to the "doll" she perceived herself as.
Hidden Depths: An interesting case that Ichinose seems to be unaware of them herself; for all of her belief in her own inhumanity, she's motivated almost entirely by compassion and a desire to do good, and has some outright childish attitudes, given how easy it is to provoke her.
I Just Want to Have Friends: At her core, Ichinose is a deeply lonely woman who hates the fact she can't connect or easily empathize with other people at all, and in fact, her core motive for making Sophia was to create a machine that could tell her how to feel things normally as well as her Only Friend.
Karma Houdini: She actually attempts to defy this. After EMMA's defeat, she tries to turn herself into the police for her actions, but is let out because of how far-fetched her confession sounded, despite the creator of EMMA being the first person that the police should be looking for about the Japan-wide Change of Heart incidents. Thus, the trope ends up technically being played straight in the end, though not due to any moral failing or lack of responsibility on her part.
Lack of Empathy: Played with. She lacks personal empathy, which means she has no idea how to emote or instinctively connect with people, and can be incredibly ruthless. As far as social empathy, she has in abundance - if she didn't, it's probable she wouldn't have programmed EMMA in the first place. That same lack of personal empathy combined with her desire to genuinely do good for the world can make it more nightmarish than if she just didn't give a rip, though: She was fully on board with Konoe developing a Jail system with EMMA to unleash mass Mind Rape, in the belief that would result in a better world. The system was already there when she programmed EMMA, Konoe and Ubukata just made it come to life.
Large Ham: She screams most of her lines out loud. Justified, in that she's literally acting most of them out; her real personality is a lot more subdued and calm.
Last-Name Basis: Everyone, including Sophia, the AI created, calls her by her surname of Ichinose.
Laughing Mad: After Sophia awakens Pandora and the Thieves are close to defeating the Hechatoncaires Boss Shadow she summons, she - doesn't take it well, that Sophia was able to find a heart where she never could.
Let Off by the Detective: After the police laugh her off for admitting to creating the Demiurge and the whole game's events, she tries turning to Zenkichi for confirmation of her crimes, only for him to turn her away as well.
Like Mother, Like Daughter: There's one interval where Sophia blatantly suggests killing Alice's Shadow to induce a mental shutdown, and the idea to manipulate Akane, a child's Shadow to capture the Phantom Thieves is presented by EMMA to Konoe. Since Ichinose created both of these applications, these might be manifestations of her mindset integrated into her creations.
Loners Are Freaks: Deconstructed. She is an extreme introvert, but in truth, she desperately wants to connect with people around her, and being treated as an aberrant freak eventually caused her to decide that everyone was right.
Luke, I Am Your Father: After reaching her the first time in the Jail of the Abyss, Ichinose reveals that she created Sophia in order to find a heart, only to trash her immediately when Sophia asked questions she couldn't answer. She proves this by issuing a command code that has Sophia turn on the Thieves. In fact, Sophia's humming originated from her as well.
Measuring the Marigolds: Deconstructed and played for tragedy. She made a computer program to help her explain what a heart is because she doesn't think she has one herself, and wanted to know what was wrong with her. When Sophia proved to be just as clueless about a heart was, she snapped and decided it didn't matter, the problem was with the world.
The Mentally Disturbed: It's pretty clear that Ichinose isn't mentally well, and the fact that she describes herself as an "emotionless doll" instead of a human (though it's almost certain she is human) is a fairly good indicator that she's not on her best mind. She isn't bothered by this mindset in and of itself, but she is sincerely upset about how isolated this makes her.
Meta Twist: That the Cloudcuckoolander following you around who reveals absolutely nothing about her past turns out to be a major antagonist is not really surprising to anyone who remembers Adachi or Akechi. That she is genuinely helpful and nice, and that she has a Heel–Face Turn shortly after The Reveal is more of a shock.
Motor Mouth: Invoked. When putting on her emotional mask, she speaks extremely quickly to shove as much information in her lines as possible. After she stops acting, she's a lot more measured in how many words-per-minute she belts out.
My Eyes Are Leaking: Because she's never been able to properly feel her emotions, she never outwardly expressed grief over anything, even when her beloved parents died. So when she starts crying over Sophia saying she's her friend despite everything, she's completely confused as to what she's feeling.
Mythology Gag: The fact that she acts as a friend and informant for the main party only to turn on them during the penultimate confrontation and managed to be convinced to join them for real in the future is shared with Adachi from Persona 4 and Akechi from Persona 5 Royal. Perhaps coincidentally, all three of these also happen to have "Chi" in their surname.
No Indoor Voice: She's extremely loud and peppy when conversing with the Phantom Thieves. Subverted once her true nature is exposed however, in which she speaks in a normal tone.
Non-Action Big Bad: Kuon is The Man Behind the Man and attempts to stop the Phantom Thieves herself, but she doesn't actually have a Persona, which means her boss fight is just her drowning the party in Shadows while she stays behind a barrier and charges up the Wave-Motion Gun EMMA lent to her.
Orphan's Ordeal: Heavily implied. She states that her parents were the only people who understood her unique mindset, and losing them destroyed pretty much the only emotional support she had, beginning the social isolation that turned her into the self-loathing misanthrope she is today.
Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: Once she's finally defeated for good with Sophia awakening Pandora, she asks Sophie to kill her out of guilt, claiming that she'd be an obstacle if they didn't. Based on how Sophia asked at the start of the game that if the Phantom Thieves can kill Alice's Shadow if they can't steal her treasure to make her atone, this response might be her real mindset (that it'd be easier and more convenient to kill people rather than try to redeem them).
Psychopathic Manchild: Due to how out of touch she's been with her emotions her entire life, she has the same grip over her anger that a moody teenager would have, immediately lashing out whenever anything provokes her.
Red Herring: Based on how she basically revealed that she's the instigator of this Metaverse-related incident right near the end of the game's second arc, you may think that she's the final boss with a Persona. She isn't, and she doesn't actually have a Persona.
Reluctant Psycho: The dominant emotion she seems to feel is self-loathing, because of her inability to connect with people. Part of her motive for discarding Sophia in place of EMMA is because she has no faith in her own ability to empathize with people, and this consistently upsets her no matter how emotionless she thinks she is.
Secretly Selfish: Before fighting the last Shadow she summons, Morgana tells her that she wasn't creating EMMA for the sake of some benefit for humanity but is running away from her deep-seated psychological issues.
Self-Deprecation: See Reluctant Psycho above. She's fully aware of how emotionless she is and her lack of skill in connecting to people, and admits flat-out she views herself as a "doll".
Shadow Archetype:
- She's one to Maruki. While both are friendly geniuses who are trying to research the human heart and act as the main instigator of reality distorting events with similar mechanics, Maruki is incredibly warm and sympathetic to other people, and is genuinely caring for the well being of others, even when he gets distorted. Ichinose, in the other hand is just cold and nearly robotic, even going as far as deliberately creating an AI god that can potentially enslave humanity into what it (and she) perceives as eternal happiness.
- She's also one to Sophia. Both have trouble understanding human emotions, want to learn what a heart really means, and desire to help humanity grow. However while Sophia had the Phantom Thieves guide her throughout her journey and teach her what a heart is, Kuon suffered loneliness throughout her whole life with no one bothering to teach her, thus Kuon eventually decides that understanding a human heart is not necessary for humanity's growth.
Skewed Priorities: Lampshaded in the final act where despite the whole of Japan virtually knocking on the door of the apocalypse, she still sends junk requests to the Phantom Thieves like before, while noting this isn't the best time to do so.
Slasher Smile: Sports a rather nasty one when she tries to blast the Phantom Thieves off the Abyss Jail's cliff. Be noted that she does this straight out from her 3D model.
The Sociopath: Played with. Ichinose initially believes herself to be this and comes across as such too, putting on a perky facade to hide her "true" personality and admitting that she doesn't have a heart. However, a bonding moment with Sophia and a Heel–Face Turn prove that she was in fact just lonely all along and desperately needing friends and family.
Soft-Spoken Sadist: Once her 'true' personality goes exposed, she drops off her Large Ham tendencies and starts speaking in a eerily soft tone while maintaining most of her verbal tics as before. Upon her Heel–Face Turn, this gets dropped.
Stepford Smiler: Her peppy disposition is an attempt to cover for how she doesn't know how to emote or connect with people at all.
Superior Successor: Of Goro Akechi in terms of being pretending to ally with the Phantom Thieves only to betray them. However Ichinose was much better in hiding her true nature than Akechi allowing her to manipulate the Phantom Thieves without being suspected until she reveal herself in the end, while the Phantom Thieves were able to see right through Akechi's facade and turn his manipulations against him. Also, Ichinose was able to help the Phantom Thieves defeat EMMA, while Akechi's plans to humiliate Shido were doomed from the beginning.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
- The first conversation she had with the Thieves involves over emphasizing about food nutrition and overly causal banter, and she even gives the Thieves a candy before she leaves; this is the exact way that Takuto Maruki from Royal interacts with the Phantom Thieves during his consultant sessions. Furthermore, both of them share an equally misguided but noble goal using the powers of the Metaverse.
- As far as her role in this whole incident goes, Ichinose is similar to Tohru Adachi. Both were true culprits who initially present themselves as bumbling, jovial personalities until their cover blows away and hid themselves behind a bunch of Red Herring culprits, and their role in the story prior to The Reveal is largely relegated to reminding the audience that they exist. Pretty much the only difference is that Ichinose was at least partially in control of EMMA while Adachi is controlled by the deities of the Midnight Channel.
Taught by Experience: A dark example. Getting rejected by everyone in her life for decades on end, to the point she went slightly crazy due to social isolation, led to her believing that the only things hearts were good for was hurting people.
Tarot Motifs: Reversed Hope. Hope symbolized optimism and positivity. Ichinose created EMMA as a solution to grant people a false hope to ease the pain after giving up on herself.
Techno Wizard: She's an exponentially better programmer and hacker than Futaba, creating Sophia, an artificial being capable of developing her own ego and thus her own heart and Persona, through nothing but computer code. Her next creation, EMMA, is able to become a new God of Control on par with Yaldabaoth.
Then Let Me Be Evil: Her being unable to easily display outward emotions got her labelled as a freak by everyone in her life. When Sophia couldn't immediately tell her she was human like everyone else upon her activation, Ichinose concluded that she was truly an emotionless monster, which indirectly birthed EMMA's conclusion that the heart was a hindrance to humanity.
They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Unlike any other targets in this game that obviously stand out like a sore thumb when the Phantom Thieves first meet them, Ichinose doesn't look any different from any other person on the streets. Despite this, she's actually the true culprit of the game's incidents (or at least, the person who kick-started it).
Tin Man: In spite of what many people around her and what Ichinose herself believes, she actually can feel some emotions deeply, albeit very rarely. The main ones she shows are anger (when Sophia asks her what a heart is) and remorse (when she realizes that Sophia actually does have a mind and soul beyond her programming and she forced her to betray her friends).
Treacherous Quest Giver: Played with. She sometimes hands out sidequests to the Phantom Thieves before The Reveal. After it, she has a Heel–Face Turn and still hands them out when you encounter her in the overworld.
Truly Single Parent: To Emma and Sophia, as Sophia is all but stated to be her daughter (thus making Emma this as well).
The Unfought: She doesn't fight you herself. Instead, she just controls Sophia to attack you, then sends out a massive mob attack before summoning a Hecatoncheir.
Übermensch: She genuinely wants to help people, but her moral code not only discounts emotions, but views and attempts to understand them as suspect. This resulted in her trying to grant desires in a similar vein as Maruki before, only to end up with something that takes desires because it cannot process emotions, and thus believes that "the best desire is no desire". Deconstructed, however, in that Sophia realizes she was lying to herself about how pained she felt being isolated from the world, and created a justification for herself to stop trying - she's really far more of a Last Man, aping actual morality while having no real views of her own.
Uncanny Valley Girl: She looks like a normal, attractive enough woman at first glance, but her overly peppy and enthusiastic behavior comes across as unnatural and at times even unnerving to the Phantom Thieves. The fact that she's indeed faking it only adds to the creepiness.
Villainous BSoD: When Sophia manages to overwrite her own programming, proving she has emotions independent of what she was programmed with and that she actually does have a heart, Ichinose completely loses even her composure, initially going into a berserk denial that what she's seeing is proof that she threw away and brainwashed someone who is effectively her daughter, and when Sophia gives her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech in which she expresses pity for what Ichinose is and how she got that way, she has a My God, What Have I Done? moment and starts crying profusely, something she didn't even do when her own parents died.
Walking Spoiler: It's impossible to talk about Ichinose without mentioning that she is the root behind the events of the game and the creator of the EMMA app.
Would Hurt a Child: Implied. When Yusuke flat out calls her "You Monster!" after she forcefully brainwashes Sophia to attack the Thieves to no avail, her response was that she never felt bad about doing such a thing. If Futaba's comments about AIs and their creators were taken as granted, then EMMA getting Akane Mind Raped and turned into Konoe's sentinel because she was the only Monarch candidate available was clearly based on her mindset, implying that she didn't have any issues using children to threaten others if she thought it was needed.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A sign of her 'emotionlessness' is how she sees this as a default and sensible behavior. She attempts this on the Phantom Thieves after resetting and reprogramming Sophia and ordering her to kill them. When defeated herself, she encourages the Phantom Thieves to do so to her to keep her from interfering again, something that is actually heavily implied to be her mindset (as seen when Sophia advises the Phantom Thieves to kill Alice at the start of the game instead of trying to change her heart).
Zerg Rush: She attempts this on you during the second time you fight her. After Sophia awakens, the last enemy she sends out is a Hecatoncheir.

Minor Enemies

Shadow Guards

The first form of the minions of the Jail Monarchs. Taking the form of black shadows wearing security uniforms, they steal the wishes of other people's shadows by order of the local Jail Monarch. If their mask is taken though, they'll become demons.

Actually Four Mooks: Exaggerated. If their mask is stolen, they turn into armies of demons.
The Goomba: The ones that appear as masked humanoid monsters or machines that can't become Personas all tend to have a simple "shoot and smash" strategy and mainly exist in numerous hordes to get slaughtered by the player.
Humanoid Abomination: The Guards are in black, but lack feet, have white masks, and can turn the wishes of a person's Shadow into a diamond, which they then steal to brainwash the masses.
Mechanical Abomination: Other versions include a security drone with a mask and arms, robot-dogs, and a walker with missiles which are bloated with Shadows and masks.

Other Characters

Miyako Kaburagi

Voiced by: Kazue Ikura (Japanese), Mara Junot (English)

Madame Kaburagi of the Public Security Office

An officer in the KPP's PSD and Zenkichi's boss. She's a strict and capable officer.

Best Served Cold: She justifies arresting the Phantom Thieves on obviously false charges to Zenkichi by telling him that they must endure whatever they have to if they want the eventual opportunity to strike back at Jyun Owada and the Board of Directors.
Big Damn Heroes: It happens entirely off-screen, but Zenkichi realizes that Miyako was likely the one who leaked the inside information Sae Niijima needed to get the police to release Zenkichi from custody and call off their manhunt of the Phantom Thieves.
By-the-Book Cop: She's a strict law enforcer and simply goes by the rationale of the law, hence nearly resulting in the Phantom Thieves' arrest. It's the Japanese version of her statement to the public in the epilogue that gives Shido's conspiracy an official name of sort, announcing that in addition to Owada's arrest, other congress members were being investigated alongside as suspected partners in an "Antisocial Force" (lit. "Hanshakai Teki Soshiki")—the Japanese government term for any organized crime syndicates with political backing and/or revolutionary aims capable of causing violent civil unrest.
Heel–Face Turn: She at first plans on arresting the Phantom Thieves and is determined to do so, but after the Kyoto incident with Akane, she gets over it and assists them instead.
Iron Lady: She's a cold, no-nonsense woman who leads one of the high-ranking branches of the Japanese police force. Kaburagi does have a softer side, as shown with some of the interactions between her and Zenkichi, but those moments are rare.
Living Emotional Crutch: Miyako is implied to have been this to Zenkichi in the past, owing to his seemingly Undying Loyalty to her. After Owada killed Zenkichi's wife in a drunken vehicular manslaughter and then, on top of that, was implied to have threatened Zenkichi's daughter, Akane, with a mental shutdown if Zenkichi didn't give up trying to pin the crime on him, Zenkichi almost completely lost himself to grief. The only person who was able to pick him back and keep him on track was his supervisor, Miyako.
My God, What Have I Done?: A subdued example; after she reluctantly agrees to arrest the Phantom Thieves once Jyun Owada imposes the issue on her and offers to promote her, she bemoans that she's just a coward who acts when told and silently regrets that she's betraying Zenkichi.
Necessarily Evil: She is completely aware of just how rotten the system she serves is and that Owada and the Commissioner General effectively are bribing her into arresting the Phantom Thieves on blatantly bogus charges. She still goes along with the orders from up top, however, because she sees the promotion that would come with following through as a way to get high enough in the system to finally weed out its corruption. She eventually comes to agree with Zenkichi that sacrificing her principles for a long-term plan isn't worth it.
Pet the Dog: Though she's introduced as something of a hardass, Kaburagi is also the very first person to tell Zenkichi to go back home and see his daughter every once in a while. Then there's the fact that her support kept Zenkichi from completely breaking down after the death of his wife Aoi, explaining his trust in her and their rather chummy (if not banter-prone) relationship even before Kaburagi reexamines her actions.
Prim and Proper Bun: Wears her hair this way, which visually complements her Iron Lady credentials.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Although she has "place the blame on the Phantom Thieves for the national Change of Heart epidemic" as Plan B, Kaburagi still allows Zenkichi to go through with his investigation, which involves working with said Phantom Thieves to unravel the mystery. After the Okinawa incident, she additionally advises him to not trust anyone, even his allies, suggesting she might have caught wind of Owada's meddling within the already corrupt police force and saw fit to tip off Zenkichi about it. Finally, when Zenkichi comes to her directly asking for help with arresting Owada, Kaburagi gives him three days to seal the deal and reinstates Zenkichi by returning his badge, but not without warning him she'll have to prioritize her own safety should he fail. She then tells one of her subordinates, who was listening in on their conversation, to leave Zenkichi alone and instead focus on digging up dirt on the Commissioner General, whose heart was changed on Owada's orders.
Red Herring: One might suspect that she's actually an enemy for going against the Phantom Thieves as suspect for the mysterious Change of Heart cases. After Zenkichi uses himself as a decoy in place for their arrest and Sae sets him free however, she agrees to cooperate and even turns against Konoe and Owada, who ordered the arrest of the Thieves.
The Scapegoat: If the police cannot find the true culprit for the Change of Heart epidemic, Kaburagi plans to put all blame on the Phantom Thieves as they are the only people with the power to do so and most of the victims fit their modus operandi.
Secretly Selfish: She is a dutiful and responsible law enforcer who genuinely wishes to apprehend the Phantom Thieves as threats to public safety. Like most of the police force, Kaburagi privately hates the Thieves for humiliating the Japanese law enforcement sector in the public's eyes, giving her a more personal reason to take the Thieves down. As a result, Kaburagi is somewhat blinded by personal bias, refusing to empathize with Zenkichi until her Heel–Face Turn when the Thieves overthrow Akane as Monarch of the Kyoto Jail.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kaburagi isn't evil and she shares Zenkichi's desire to change the corrupt system she is part of. To do so, she's willing to do whatever it takes to ensure she can advance in her position to eventually weed out the corruption around her, even going so far as to knowingly go against the law to try and arrest the Phantom Thieves if it means she can obtain a promotion.

Jyun Owada (Unmarked Spoilers)

Jyun Owada

Voiced by: Ikuya Sawaki (Japanese), Andrew Morgado (English)

A former crony of Shido trying to take power for himself, and the only villain in the game without a Freudian Excuse for his wickedness. He's corrupt, incompetent and easily manipulated.

Big Bad Wannabe:
- As one of Shido's cronies, he tries so hard to claim the power that his former boss had. Owada thinks he is in a Big Bad Duumvirate with Akira Konoe and will be using EMMA and the Metaverse for his personal advancement to Prime Minister. In reality, he's nothing more than an Unwitting Pawn to Konoe, the latter planning to betray him once he had served his purpose.
- This is especially notable after Konoe's change of heart. After Konoe's public confession, Owada attempts to do damage control to remove any links back to himself. But then it becomes apparent that other officials were only collaborating with Owada because Konoe had stolen their desires.
Complexity Addiction: Being a former Conspirator for Shido, Owada inherits his habit of relying on subterfuge to keep his involvement out of the public's eyes. This is why his engineered manhunt for the Phantom Thieves gets prematurely halted; the cops can neither officially link the Phantom Thieves to the murder he wanted to pin on them nor did he actually go through the process to get a Judge's seal to make their arrest official.
Contrived Coincidence: How does the man who accidentally killed a police inspector's wife a year prior to Persona 5 end up getting sponsored and targeted by the CEO of the biggest tech company at the time, with said CEO now trying to use the officer's daughter to catch a band of Metaverse-abusing teenagers under his supervision?
Corrupt Politician: To the very bone, as he would accept any offer to set him into power and even bribed Kaburagi to go against the Phantom Thieves herself.
Didn't Think This Through: Like Shido, he attempts to frame the Phantom Thieves for Ubukata's death using his connections to the police, but botched the process completely where Sae points out that he skipped various procedures to make it a legal charge and gets it thrown out completely.
Drunk Driver: How he killed Akane's mother two years prior to the events of Strikers.
Evil Old Folks: He's old, nasty, and corrupt and refused to bear any responsibility for having killed Akane's mother in a hit-and-run attack while drunk.
Evil vs. Evil: The political opponents Konoe took care of for him turned out to be pretty corrupt in their own right, if the crimes they confessed to after their hearts were changed are legitimate. Doesn't make Owada any less of a rotten bastard though, and it's heavily implied that Konoe only went after those people because it was a way that he could fulfill his arrangement with Owada without doing anything Konoe considered "villainous".
Flat Character: He has no reason to exist other than to act as the sole truly corrupt personality in the game and a decoy for the player.
Harmless Villain: At least in the present, anyway. Despite having a role in previous events, the other antagonists could simply have him arrested whenever they wanted to. The one time he tried to do something: frame the Phantom Thieves for murder, it also falls completely flat the second an actual defense attorney looked into it.
Hate Sink: Much like Shido before him, he's a corrupt politician who shows no qualms covering up crimes, pinning it on others, and threaten others just to save his own skin. Unlike Shido, he's unanimously hated by nearly everyone notable in the game and is promptly arrested at the end of it.
Karma Houdini Warranty: After getting away with at least one count of manslaughter for two years, along with a long list of corrupt acts that he's committed, Owada is finally arrested at the end of Strikers.
Lack of Empathy: He accidentally ran over Akane's mother Aoi while drunk and covered it up by killing and then pinning the blame on a patsy (his secretary, to boot), and threatened Zenkichi with a death threat against Akane should he dare investigate any further. Based on how he worked for Shido, who was basically untouchable during that time, the threats definitely wouldn't be empty had Zenkichi chosen to continue.
Miniature Senior Citizen: His character model is noticeably shorter than the characters he shares scenes with.
Never My Fault: Two years prior to Strikers and a year prior to Persona 5, he ran over Akane's mother when he was drunk driving (which was already illegal on its own) and, to prevent himself from being investigated, blamed it on his secretary instead and had him commit suicide.
Red Herring: The game builds him up to be a major threat. He's actually just a tool and a decoy for Konoe to take over with the EMMA application and is promptly arrested at the end of the game.
The Remnant: Owada is among the remaining members of Shido's Antisocial Force who are still at large after the events of the vanilla game. Of course, that gets fixed when he's arrested at the end of Strikers.
Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Being one of Shido's supporters granted Owada a lot of power and that includes having a lot of members of the law enforcement in his pockets. In the present, however, this gets downplayed, since Shido's been arrested and the conspiracy uncovered, and eventually averted, as he finally gets arrested at the end of the game.
- Two years prior to the event of Strikers, Owada killed Zenkichi's wife in a hit-and-run accident while drunk. Using his connections to Shido, Owada is able to get away with the murder by framing his secretary and threatening Akane.
- As the Phantom Thieves gets closer to solving the Change of Hearts epidemic, Owada and the Commissioner-General bribe Commissioner Kaburagi with promotion and frame the Phantom Thieves for the murder of Shuzo Ubukata‎‎, even putting up a fake arrest warrant with no hard evidence for them. Downplayed when Sae gets the warrant thrown out because of said lack of hard evidence, among other oversights.
Smug Snake: He's an abysmally poor planner, and he's the only one not aware of it. His masterstroke to frame the Phantom Thieves gets destroyed utterly in an afternoon when he pisses off Kaburagi, the one person who could carry it out, and because he didn't actually go through the full arrest warrant process; the moment Sae takes a look at the warrant he pulled out of his ass, it withers.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
- To Shido. Like his former boss, Owada is a highly corrupt politician who is able to evade the law because of his power and is willing to hurt or kill anyone in his way, even children. He also has a personal rivalry with one of the Phantom Thieves like his former boss (specifically, Zenkichi), but knows literally nothing about their identities.
- He's also one to Mitsuo, as far as his standing in the whole scheme revolving EMMA is concerned. They're both Red Herring culprits designed to divert the player, and are both portrayed as unlikable and irredeemable Hate Sinks, having nothing to back themselves up other than their narcissism. They're also responsible for murder, although Owada was only confirmed to commit manslaughter while Mitsuo purposefully killed Morooka in a feeble attempt to shake Inaba.
The Unfought: The player never directly confronts him over the course of the game. He's conventionally arrested by the police in the epilogue.
Unknown Rival: He wants to build himself up as a major threat like his former boss, but in the end, he never crosses paths with the Thieves (besides Zenkichi) directly or indirectly, and they end up seeing him getting arrested on TV at the end of the game without any direct confrontation or targeting his Shadow.
Unwitting Pawn: While they're technically partners, Akira Konoe was planning to have him arrested (or brainwashed, or both) after he gained absolute power with the EMMA app.
Villain with Good Publicity: A corrupt Diet lawmaker who is known to be in Shido's faction. Owada is also the current Chief Cabinet Secretary.
Villainous Breakdown: He panics after Konoe's change of heart, and considers using him as a scapegoat, much like he'd done with his secretary. When he realizes that the commissioner general won't help him, he loses his composure.

Characters / Persona 5 Strikers

Persona Users

Sophia / "Sophie"

Arcana: Hope^note

Persona: Pithos, Pandora^note

Weapons: Yo-yos and blasters

Voiced by: Misaki Kuno (Japanese), Megan Taylor Harvey (English)

Zenkichi Hasegawa / "Wolf"

Arcana: V. Priest (Japan)/Apostle (English)

Persona: Valjean

Weapons: Large swords and dual revolvers

Voiced by: Shin-ichiro Miki (Japanese), Tom Taylorson (English)

Antagonists

Jail Monarchs

The Lock Keepers

Other Targets

Kuon Ichinose

Minor Enemies

Other Characters

Miyako Kaburagi

Jyun Owada

Alternative Title(s): Persona 5 Scramble The Phantom Strikers

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Characters / Persona 5 Strikers

Edit Locked

Persona Users

Sophia / "Sophie"

Arcana: Hopenote Pithos lacks a displayed Arcana since it isn't a true Persona

Persona: Pithos, Pandoranote Pithos is an entity mimicking a Persona rather than a true Persona, meaning Pandora is technically Sophia's initial Persona

Weapons: Yo-yos and blasters

Voiced by: Misaki Kuno (Japanese), Megan Taylor Harvey (English)

Zenkichi Hasegawa / "Wolf"

Arcana: V. Priest (Japan)/Apostle (English)

Persona: Valjean

Weapons: Large swords and dual revolvers

Voiced by: Shin-ichiro Miki (Japanese), Tom Taylorson (English)

Antagonists

Jail Monarchs

The Lock Keepers

Other Targets

Kuon Ichinose

Minor Enemies

Other Characters

Miyako Kaburagi

Jyun Owada

Alternative Title(s): Persona 5 Scramble The Phantom Strikers

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Index

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Arcana: Hope^note

Persona: Pithos, Pandora^note