Characters / Persona 5: Sumire Yoshizawa

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

Due to her identity being a Walking Spoiler, all spoilers are unmarked. Read at your own risk.

If you were looking for the real Kasumi Yoshizawa, her entry can be found at the bottom of Persona 5: Other Characters.

Sumire Yoshizawa / Violet

Arcana: La Foi (The Faith)

Persona: Cendrillon (Initial) → Vanadis (Ultimate) → Ella (Third-Tier)

Weapons: Rapiers and lever-action rifles

Arcana Bonus: Chance to avoid being ambushed, increased ambush distance, chance to cause status effects on enemies at the start of battle with long distance ambush, increased maximum HP, Showtime attack with Joker.

Exclusive Skill (Royal): Masquerade - Severe Physical damage to one target 2 times.

Voiced by: Sora Amamiya (JP), Laura Post (EN)

"Let's dance!"

^{Click here to see Violet}

^{Click here to see Sumire}

^{Click here to see Cendrillon}

Dressed in Ashes

^{Click here to see Vanadis}

The Beloved Goddess

^{Click here to see Ella}

Happily Ever After

Beauty is devotion.

Cendrillon: (false awakening) "So adamant... Rather than accept a life in cinders, you'd strive towards splendor— you know the risk... Well, if those really are the shoes you've chosen... Then we'll dance to the end. […] Accept this contract... The spell cast upon you..."

Cendrillon: (true awakening) "Such tenacity... It seems to fit you better than ever before. The glass slippers are the icon of glory... Not just for you, but the other girl within you as well... Are you prepared for your debut? The ball awaits."

A new character introduced in Royal. Kasumi is a first year and a New Transfer Student who joins Shujin Academy in the Spring the same year as Joker. Since middle school, she has been an accomplished gymnastics athlete. In reality, she's just her inferior, depressed and timid younger sister Sumire Yoshizawa taking on Kasumi's name and personality; the real Kasumi died a month before Joker's arrival, trying to prevent Sumire from being hit by traffic as she ran away from Kasumi without looking; Dr. Maruki helped her cope with her Survivor Guilt by brainwashing her into believing she was Kasumi.

During the third-term events of the game, "Kasumi" joins as the tenth and final member of the Phantom Thieves. Fitting her athletic background, she is a Fragile Speedster, boasting the highest Agility, who specializes in Bless and Physical skills, with a lean towards Critical Hit skills. Her persona is Cendrillon, the lead character in French writer Charles Perrault's 17th century retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale that became the basis of the most popular contemporary versions of the story. As a Persona, Cendrillon takes the form of a woman wearing a blue dress and boots made of glass, with a white cape, and a blue hair bow, with everything trimmed in gold.

Her Ultimate persona is Vanadis, an alternate name for Freya, the Norse Goddess of, among other things, love and war. She is obtainable after The Reveal and the rest of her Confidant is unlocked, when "Kasumi" truly Awakens and returns to being just Sumire. Vanadis is a dark haired women with a red and black dress with feathers flowing from edges.

Her third tier ultimate Persona is Ella, which is frequently used as the real name of Cinderella in adaptations of the story. Ella appears as a woman in a mini Fairy Tale Wedding Dress, crystalized Combat Stilettos with a veil and bouquet of lilies.

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#-D

• 11th-Hour Ranger: While she intermittently assists Joker for specific battles through the main campaign, she only joins the Phantom Thieves proper after her true awakening in Maruki's Palace, during Royal's True Ending route.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Sumire's third-tier Persona Ella awakens on February 2nd, the day before the final battle, and can only be used against Maruki himself (unless you wander off to go grind in his Palace on the Day of Fates).
• Adaptational Late Appearance: In the manga adaptation, Sumire first appears in Volume 6, just after Kaneshiro's defeat, over two months after her first appearance in the game. Since the manga omits the Action Prologue, she doesn't appear there, either.
• Advertised Extra: Zigzagged depending on how you play. Sumire got an especially large amount of focus in advertising for Royal to the point of frequently appearing alongside Joker himself, implying she'll be an important member of the Phantom Thieves. While her storyline does get some focus and development during the Royal-exclusive third semester, she spends most of the game as a plot-irrelevant NPC, and is only directly playable in a handful of battles throughout the story before finally joining the thieves in Maruki's Palace during the True Ending route. If you don't complete Maruki's confidant and just go for the vanilla route, she never becomes a selectable party member and is eventually dropped from the plot altogether.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Sumire is the only girl who will admit she likes Joker before you get the option to date her. Thus this is played straight if you decide to not date her.
• All of the Other Reindeer: The Shujin students who don't put her on a pedestal are usually jealous of her for getting preferential treatment by virtue of being an honor student. Those individuals feel she isn’t good enough to justify getting such treatment.
• Aloof Ally: Deconstructed. Sumire in her "Kasumi" persona at first disagrees with the Thieves' actions, believing that relying on them will be to the detriment of society in the long run. Once she learns Joker is one himself, she realizes he would never do anything rash and apologizes for her earlier comments, demonstrating her trust in him. She still refuses to join up because of how important her gymnastics are to her, but is open to joining when the need is dire such as during the Shido arc and only doesn't do so because Joker and Morgana wish to keep her out of harm's way. Then when Sumire reawakens to who she really is, she eventually resolves herself to rebel against Maruki's distorted reality, which is ironically the very thing she was worried about the Phantom Thieves carrying out in the first place. She handles the dilemma presented by Maruki with grace and empathy, realizing his methods did help her but that living a lie forever would be running away from her problems.
• Always Second Best: Sumire is an undeniably talented athlete and gymnast, but Kasumi can win almost every competition she enters, seemingly without effort, even though their training regimens are identical. This acts as a major fuel for Sumire's inferiority complex towards Kasumi, to the point that Sumire sees herself as a complete failure.
• Apologizes a Lot: Any scene she's in will more than likely have her apologize or excuse herself in some fashion, whether it be needing to cut a meeting short so she can get to practice or not saying thank you to someone for their help even after they completely forgot about what she's thanking them for. Heck she'll even apologize for apologizing when other people tell her there's no need to worry about what she's trying to say sorry for. Though this takes on a much darker aspect upon the reveal of her immense guilt over accidentally causing her sister's death, and the fact that she has almost no self esteem to speak of were it not for the fact that she was brainwashed to believe she's Kasumi.
• Artificial Stupidity: As a boss in Maruki's palace, her entire strategy is to buff herself and then use Sword Dance. If you bring a Persona that nulls or drains physical attacks, she'll do nothing but spam uselessly, while if you bring a Persona that repels them, she'll still use the same strategy and defeat herself.
• Badass Adorable: She's one of the youngest of the group, at the same age as Futaba, has her adorkable side, and she kicks as much ass as the rest of the thieves.
• Badass Longcoat: Her thief costume has a stylish long black coat not unlike Joker's that reaches all the way down to her ankles, yet doesn't stop her from pulling off all manner of acrobatic battle moves.
• Bait-and-Switch: She is exclusively presented as "Kasumi Yoshizawa" for all pre-release material and collaborations. She isn't; She is actually Sumire Yoshizawa and "Kasumi Yoshizawa" is actually her dead sister that she wished to become.
• Battle Cry: "Show them, Cendrillon!"/"Dazzle us, Vanadis!"/"Enchant us, Ella!"
• Be Yourself: Sumire's main story arc and development during the third term of Royal involves accepting herself as Sumire rather than continue living a lie as Kasumi.
• Beneath the Mask: It seems like "Kasumi" is happy and successful. She isn't; this is just Sumire brainwashed into thinking that she's Kasumi by Maruki just to stop her from committing suicide. And before then, she's already really mentally unstable.
• Bespectacled Cutie: As Sumire, she wears glasses while letting her hair down, to emphasize her shy and awkward personality. She starts reverting back to her original appearance once the truth comes out.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Although Sumire really likes Joker, unlike Futaba or Haru, if he cheats on her, she says this, straight out before beating him like the other girls;
  Sumire: You're terrible, Senpai!
• Bewildering Punishment: Due to the constant stress of having to keep up the expectations of her peers and teachers, Kasumi works herself to the bone in order to succeed and reach the gymnastic internationals. It doesn't work out, as her scholarship is threatened on account of a bad performance. More specifically, for being a 2nd Runner Up! This is partially justified by the fact that Shujin wanted both Yoshizawa sisters to improve the school’s reputation, but the real Kasumi is dead and Sumire isn’t giving them the results they need after the scandal pileup surrounding Kamoshida and Principal Kobayakawa.
• Big Damn Heroes: On the day of the Casino heist, she suspected Joker would be involved with something and secretly followed him, immediately assisting Joker once she sees him surrounded by Shadows.
• Big Eater: She has an appetite that makes the Big Bang Challenge look like a snack, as shown by her bento box, which is twice the size of a regular one and filled with nothing but large rice balls. While hanging out with Joker at the diner, her side of the table is covered in plates while Joker has nothing but a cup of coffee. Justified as gymnasts have to eat a lot to maintain their bodies' nutrition through such a physically-demanding sport. This also acts as an early bit of foreshadowing, as despite her gymnastics do indeed require a lot of calories, it's possible that she was engaging in Post-Stress Overeating after her sister's death, as she no longer seems to do it after she recovers from her depression in her Confidant events.
• Bilingual Bonus: Cendrillon is the French name of the fairy tale character known as Cinderella in English retellings of the story.
• Blue Is Heroic: Her Persona, Cendrillon, is mostly colored blue.
• Book Ends: Joker's first and last meetings with Sumire took place at the train station.
• Break the Cutie: When Maruki displays the truth behind Kasumi's identity in front of Joker, Akechi and "Kasumi" in order to warn them of the consequences of denying his reality, "Kasumi" doesn't take it well. Her Metaverse attire vanishes, the bow on her hair peels off and she just outright goes into despair. It's also implied that regardless of whether Maruki is distorted or not, this is inevitable and it is only a matter of time before the illusion breaks down.
• Broken Bird: At first, it seems like Kasumi is very happy, an honor student on track as an Olympic-level gymnast. However, this is merely what Sumire thinks Kasumi would be like. The "Kasumi" in-game is just her sister Sumire being brainwashed into becoming Kasumi as a last-ditch effort to save her sanity. Not only did Sumire suffer from an inferiority complex that degenerated into suicidal depression, she lost Kasumi because she prevented Sumire from being run over by a car and got herself killed as a result.
• Call-Back: The fight against Sumire and berserk Cendrillon shares traits with the Yosukesaurus boss fight in Persona Q2, as you have to fight an ally that was driven berserk by an Arc Villain who summons backup to aid them by giving them buffs.
• Came Back Wrong: This is how it initially looked to her family, those who knew her and "Kasumi" herself. Her coach even tells her to take a look at herself and stop training for a while because of this, since like other people, she was unaware that Sumire took cognitive manipulation therapy. In her mind, "Kasumi" herself 'displays' this, as she’s not been able to perform as well as she used to. She even says early on that her body feels wrong during her performances, as its not doing what she's expecting it to.
• Character Select Forcing: Royal goes out of its way to ensure you use Sumire during the Third Semester. A lot of enemies in Maruki's Palace are weak to her signature element, Bless, which none of the other party members (aside from Joker) have access to. Kasumi's third-tier Ultimate Persona is both immune to Bless and resists Psychic, which Maruki loves to throw around with impunity. The Superboss on New Game Plus, Lavenza, has a phase that requires the party land a critical hit every turn, making Sumire - a Critical Hit Class who can boost the party's critical hit rate with Brave Step - a must-have against her.
• Chekhov M.I.A.: Around midway into the game, Kasumi will invite Joker for a lunch hangout where she would mention that she had a younger sister who died from a (traffic) accident when she was in middle school. Her younger sister, now she calls "Sumire" was then brought up way later into the game when Joker, Akechi and Kasumi storm the strange Palace at January 2. It turns out that Sumire is not dead; Kasumi is dead and this "Kasumi" is actually Sumire.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Along with Akechi, Sumire isn’t so much as mentioned in Persona 5 Strikers despite having been part of the Phantom Thieves just months prior to the game’s events. This is most likely due to the development of Strikers predating Royal.
• Combat Medic: Though not to the extent of Morgana or Makoto, Sumire has the single-target healing move Diarahan as part of her moveset, allowing her to heal her teammates in a pinch.
• Combat Stilettos: Give a round of applause to the girl who can do gymnastics and fight monsters in those heels.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To Marie from Persona 4 Golden. Both characters are included in Updated Rereleases and their Social Links, while optional, allow players to access new or extended endings, but their involvement and relationship with the cast differ.
  • Marie is a temporary "employee" of the Velvet Room tasked with aiding Yu via Skill Card management and suffers from amnesia, with her Social Link revolving around her missing memories and eventually deciding to create new ones. Sumire is a first-year student at Joker's school who offers to teach Joker about choreography in exchange for helping her get over her "slump". The second half of her Confidant involves her trying to accept her actual self and get other people's acknowledgment.
  • Throughout her Social Link, Marie gradually meets and befriends the other members of the Investigation Team. Sumire, on the other hand, only ever interacts with Joker and Mona throughout the base storyline and doesn't properly interact with the rest of the Phantom Thieves until the Third Semester.
  • Marie is one half of Izanami-no-Okami, essentially making her an Amnesiac God. Sumire is a regular human whose memories are warped to make her think she's actually her dead sister Kasumi.
  • Outside of her DLC appearance in the Ultimax fighting roster, Marie doesn't engage in combat or aid the Investigation Team in battle. Although initially neutral, Sumire eventually joins the Phantom Thieves as a party member in the Third Semester.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: She can cook quite well. At her Rank 3 hangout with Joker, she makes a curry gym food bento that tastes fine, but it just doesn't look like curry at all because she was unsure of the ingredients. Her own bento which is prepared by herself is perfectly edible and looks fine, however. It turns out that this is because the Kasumi overlay was interfering with Sumire's routines; Kasumi cannot cook properly while Sumire can.
• Critical Hit Class: Her Sword Dance skill comes with a huge crit rate, she has Apt Pupil as an Innate skill, and she also has a skill to increase all of the party members' crit rates.
• Crush Blush: A very unsubtle one unlike the other girls, should Joker confess to her (or before that in later Ranks, says 'love' in his sentence). Virtually her entire face will flush deeply, combined with an expression that clearly shows her internal panic and shock, among other things. See it for yourself.◊
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Despite being a proficient gymnast, Kasumi is very klutzy to the point that she can miss 6 balls in a row during her battling cage hangout even if paying full attention and she starts choosing joke glasses once she chose a few glasses that she doesn't like in another hangout. The real Kasumi is a lot more nimble; these all happen because this is Sumire going around calling herself Kasumi.
• Dance Battler: Her fighting style is based on the moves she performs in rhythmic gymnastics, and her reveal trailer even focuses on her dancing in a very balletic manner in the middle of a crowd. Her Persona, Cendrillion, spins around in a pirouette while using skills. Kasumi herself performs a ribbon dance while posing for the aftermath of an All-Out Attack.
• Dancing Royalty: She has been struggling in all aspects of her life—her once professional-level gymnastics have lost their flair, her grades have been falling behind as the scholarship slips away, and she's ostracized for receiving special treatment. However, on the night of the school festival, we see that despite all of this she. can. dance.
• Dead Person Impersonation:
  • She's actually Sumire Yoshizawa. During a session with Maruki, she confessed to wishing she was her recently passed away sister instead of herself. Maruki decided to brainwash her so she could believe just that, so she didn't have to confront the fact her sister is gone.
  • She had been wanting to become Kasumi even prior to meeting Maruki, with her father becoming increasingly worried as her sanity and suicidal tendencies were worsening in the process. It got to the point that her father told her to go to Maruki in the hopes he could help his daughter. Unfortunately, Sumire's degenerating mental health rejected the normal methods, leading to Maruki using his cognitive warping powers to make her think that she is Kasumi.
  • Apparently, other people just see her as Sumire and nothing else when she has the cognitive filter on, although she hears others address her as Kasumi. For others, her coach included, Sumire simply Came Back Wrong.
• Death of Personality: Happens both ways during the Third Semester Arc.
  • If you choose to defy Maruki and his false world, "Kasumi" will eventually be removed, with Sumire accepting herself for who she is and moving on from the trauma.
  • Likewise, if you agree to Maruki's dream world, then Sumire will be completely erased, with her conception of Kasumi taking full control.
• Delayed Reaction: After awakening Cendrillon and returning to the real world, she's able to hear Morgana talk, but doesn't think anything strange of it. It isn't until Morgana point-blank tells her that a cat is talking that she actually realizes how absurd it is.
• Despair Event Horizon: Sumire is already depressed and outright mentally unstable because of Kasumi outperforming her and taking care of her 24/7, but Kasumi's Heroic Sacrifice dropped her depression into suicidal levels, since Sumire thought that she murdered Kasumi and stole her dream.
• Developers' Desired Date: Zigzagged; while Sumire gets a lot of Ship Tease with the protagonist, she can't actually be romanced until the third semester, meaning that the player can miss out on dating her altogether if Maruki's Confidant doesn't reach Rank 9 before he leaves Shujin. In any case, she misses out on events like the Hawaii trip and Christmas (although she does still make an appearance during the former).
• Distaff Counterpart:
  • Her admiration for Joker leads her internal concept of a rebel and her Thief costume to resemble a feminine take on his. Her gun of choice also indirectly mirrors Joker's: a lever-action rifle, while not Joker's main type of gun, is the type wielded by Satanael, Joker's Ultimate Persona, and her Persona can also learn a skill similar to Arsène and Satanael's Q2 signatures, Rebel/Revolt Vanguard. Her second Persona, Vanadis, is a more feminine take on Arsène's design with a ballerina flare. They share the red and black color scheme, black wings, horns, and long boots. On top of that, her Persona kicks when performing a Physical skill, just like Arsène and Raoul.
  • Personality-wise, she also shares a resemblance to Akechi. Both of them have an admiration for Joker, voice their disapproval of the Phantom Thieves for reasons unique to them, and eventually join the group to fulfill a specific purpose. Both of them also use Bless and physical skills, and have a flair for being showy during battle. In addition, both Kasumi and Akechi have contradictory behavior in their beliefs and actions. However, Akechi is a pragmatic hitman that only acts according to the situation while Kasumi's cognitive overlay and real person directly conflict with each other. Both characters also have "false royalty" motifs: Akechi pretends to be a famous Detective Prince (to the point where his first thief outfit is styled after a stereotypical fairytale prince) to hide his true nature as a murderous hitman while Sumire's Persona and storyline of pretending to be her deceased sister are based off the story of Cinderella. They are also the only two Phantom Thieves to have a Showtime attack with Joker and the only Thieves who have to be fought during the game's story.
  • Adding to both of these is that Joker, Akechi and Kasumi are the only Thieves to actively take part in battle whose main Personas learn more than one skill unique to themselves. Joker has Tyrant's Mind and Phantom Show (as well as the aforementioned Vanguard skills if you count Q2), Akechi has Laevatein and Rebellion Blade, and Kasumi has Brave Step and Masquerade.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": She says she's a bit "humbled" that Makoto calls her "Yoshizawa-san," and insists that "Sumire" is fine.
• Driven to Suicide: Averted. While Kasumi's death would most definitely drive her to suicide or render her catatonic from the grief, Maruki put it to a halt quite quickly and Joker does the rest of the work.
• Duel Boss: During the brief moment where Maruki manipulates her as a warning to Joker and Akechi, Akechi leaves Joker to deal with her alone, since Akechi fears that he would kill her.

E-I

• Endearingly Dorky: When she's out of the Metaverse, Sumire is very clumsy and awkward, both when she was made to think she was Kasumi or after that went through, and is generally a wholesome and pleasant character to see and interact with. For example, during the Hawaii trip, she tries to sneak up in front of Joker and get herself with a "Konichi...WA!"/"Hello..Senpai!", or when she keeps apologizing for the slightest of mess-ups, perceived or not. (although the latter is actually one of the darker parts of her personality.) When she gets to finally become herself, she displays this effortlessly, with the same tendencies to mess up. However, if Joker does confess his love to her, this gets taken to extremes because she just stutters heavily, complete with her whole face flushing bright red in a Crush Blush never seen on any other girl, alongside an extremely out of character expression that expresses nothing other than pure shock and anxiety.
• Establishing Character Moment: When Joker meets her for the first time, she offers an elderly lady her seat as she prepares to get off, only to become dismayed when a man sits down and falls asleep before she has a chance. Kasumi also thanks Joker when they get off when he asks if there was any way he could help, but she politely refuses. This, coupled with her kind demeanor even after hearing about his criminal record, helps solidify Kasumi as one of the few kind people in Shujin.
• Fairytale Motifs: Her character is very much inspired by Cinderella. Aside from her Persona being named after the famous French version of the story and the design being heavly based on Disney's version of Cinderella with the blue dress and blonde hair tied in a bun, Kasumi's character arc of impersonating her late sister draws from Cinderella getting the chance to become a beautiful maiden.
• Fairy Tale Wedding Dress: Ella wears a mini one, complete with veil and bouquet.
• Fan Disservice: After Joker defeats her during her very brief battle where she was indirectly used by Maruki as retaliation against him and Akechi for rejecting his deal, he summons a cognition manipulating device resembling tentacles to tie her by the limbs and forcefully invokes her Persona in a berserk state in an attempt to deter Joker.
• Fatal Flaw: Envy. Sumire's jealousy over her sister Kasumi's more natural talent in gymnastics led to a not-insignificant amount of heartbreak.
  • Sumire not listening to Kasumi attempting to cheer her up resulted in Sumire running off. She was so focused on being Always Second Best that Sumire didn't notice a car coming as she ran into the road. This caused Kasumi to shove Sumire out of the way, getting hit by the car instead and dying. As a result, Sumire could never live with the guilt of "killing" her sister.
  • During her counselling session with Maruki, Sumire expressed her desire to live as Kasumi instead. This made Maruki use his power of changing reality to make Sumire think she really was Kasumi. And when the truth eventually comes out in the third semester, Sumire ends up in a Heroic BSoD that results in her fighting Joker to defend her desired identity.
• Fighting Your Friend: Maruki deliberately triggers her personal fears of returning into the suicidal, depressed Sumire and desperation to believe she's the real Kasumi, then orders her to attack Joker. She briefly attacks Joker, resulting in a boss battle against her. She so desperately wants to avoid confronting her sister's death that she's willing to use violence against one of her closest allies for it, even in a situation where she absolutely isn't in a condition to fight proper. She comes to her senses pretty quickly, and it seems like Maruki is throwing a dire warning towards Joker for rejecting his deal.
• First-Name Basis:
  • After joining the Phantom Thieves, she asks her teammates, who'd previously called her "Yoshizawa" or "Yoshizawa-san," to call her by her (real) first name, then responds in kind.
  • Curiously enough, she refers to her older sister Kasumi by name rather than using Japanese Sibling Terminology on her, and vice versa.
• Flower Motifs: Her thief costume features a large silver rose on its belt, and her code name, which is noted in-game to be the translation of Sumire, is Violet (like the small flower). Her third-tier Persona Ella carries a bridal bouquet, and is constantly surrounded by fluttering petals. Her All-Out Attack also features roses in each corner, along with petals floating across the screen.
• Foreshadowing: The game gives you several hints that Kasumi is not what she seems even before The Reveal.
  • The opening of the game has a subtle hint; "Kasumi" can be seen breaking out a dance on the road holding an umbrella in a rainy day. That's the exact condition where the tragedy that caused the real Kasumi's death happened.
  • At the second day of the game where the mental shutdown-based train crash occurred, Sojiro had a new dialogue about a 15 year old girl who died in a car crash a month prior to Joker's arrival. Kasumi is 15 during the game's setting.
  • Despite being given the status of honor student, on the basis that she be given lots of bonuses in exchange for her performing well at gymnastics, her first big meets of the year are described as disasters; in October, she finally does well in a meet, but she only comes in third place. While Kasumi thinks that it's an issue with her confidence, or grief over her sister's death, the reveal shows that she was only Sumire acting like Kasumi, and it's both of those things combined with Sumire not being up to Kasumi's level of talent in the first place.
  • All of the people that she interacted with save for Joker (and Futaba on one occasion, and only in the English script) call her by surname instead of first name, even if it came to people that supposedly knew her well. Sure enough, that's a smart way to cover up a massive reveal spoiler; that being that she's not really Kasumi, but that she thinks she is and believes everyone is calling her Kasumi.
  • The fake Kasumi does get depressed sometimes. This is something that the real one doesn't do. Even moments before her sacrifice, she's still trying to positively encourage her. This is an indication that Sumire's subconscious was still inside her.
  • When Joker picks up Kasumi's handbook, he can ask if her name is Kasumi or tell her that she dropped her notebook, and she confirms that her name is Kasumi Yoshizawa. However, when meeting Maruki in his palace a lot later on, Maruki explains that nobody but Sumire herself thought that she was Kasumi, questioning Joker about how he misunderstood her name. It's implied that Sumire was actually using Kasumi's student notebook and thought that the girl on the photo was her, and since Joker never actually knew Sumire, he just assumed that "Kasumi" was her real name. Furthermore, if you look at the scene very closely, you will notice that the girl's picture on the student notebook has brown hair, rather than red hair (something Joker could have rationalized as hair-dye).
  • Multiple during "Kasumi's" Rank 2 confidant hangout where Sumire displays the initial leaks of her "Kasumi" guise.
    • She outright states that she's been "growing taller" and reaching puberty to describe her "slump". That is the exact phrasing that Kasumi used to shore up her confidence right before she died.
    • Her coach also told her to stop training for a while for seemingly no reason. It turns out that nobody ever saw her as Kasumi to begin with and in other people's eyes, she's just insane.
    • If one pays very sharp attention to her wording when she was venting about her coach telling her "Kasumi's greatest weapon was her boldness", it was worded exactly like that as if the coach was talking about, rather than to, Kasumi. Of course, the coach wasn't tutoring Kasumi, but Sumire.
    • Kasumi also describes having troubles controlling her performance or movements as "her body wasn't hers". This indicates that Sumire's level of talent didn't change to keep up with her new cognition, which actually explains how she doesn't execute her stunts and routines well.
  • We are often treated to several Shujin students commenting on how they think Kasumi doesn't deserve special treatment. To them, she simply does not live up to the rumors they'd heard about how great of an athlete she is. As it turns out, they are not exactly wrong, as Sumire is indeed nowhere near as good as Kasumi was, at least in her own mind.
  • More proof that the sister's abilities are interfering with each other happens during the rank 3 hangout with Kasumi; she claims that she can cook well, although she made a strange bento for Joker instead. The bento itself tasted fine, it just doesn't look like how it tastes. The player later finds that Sumire as "Kasumi" does tell Maruki about a difference between her own cookery skills and that of her sister.
  • During the Rank 4 Faith Confidant hangout:
    • Kasumi chose a few normal looking glasses for her father only to choose several odd-looking glasses. This might not seem much, but Sumire does have a very poor sense of fashion.
    • During the same hangout, she says that she has anxiety, something that the real one obviously doesn't have.
  • Another "off" moment is that during her rank 5 confidant hangout at the batting cages, after claiming that she used to be great at baseball and used to hit home-runs all the time, she blatantly misses several balls in a row despite having good reflexes as a gymnast.
  • Her confidant is black and "maxes" at 5 ranks; This is not normal for a confidant and is used to foreshadow that she is indeed, a fake. The narration for her "maxed out" Rank 5 is not voiced by Lavenza, and follows a different script as well. This also represents the cognitive overlay that Maruki put on her.
  • During the forced hangout with Kasumi in the family diner, she tells the protagonist that she had a younger sibling who died from a traffic accident. This apparently made her so dejected that she didn't have any motivation to perform. Much later into the game we see her therapy session with Maruki, in which Sumire expressed those exact feelings about Kasumi's death and then told him that Kasumi would never feel this way even if Sumire died, right before Maruki made her think that she was Kasumi.
  • Much like Akechi before, one of her costumes, specifically the Catherine one, tells a lot about her true identity. The costume turns her into Rin, a male alien that impersonates and takes the form of a young girl. Sumire is impersonating her dead sister.
  • During her first "awakening":
    • There is no blood gushing out when she tears off her mask. Again, this also foreshadows how she is not the real Kasumi.
    • Kasumi's supposedly dead sister's cognition also appears in the fake awakening, who mutters: "I...It's my fault...You must..Kasumi...You must..." ^note Japanese: "It's my fault...instead of me...Kasumi..." which actually causes an adverse reaction towards her. Of course, that is not Kasumi's sister, that is Sumire, or more accurately this "Kasumi". It's obvious that she would have an adverse reaction, because the image is the truth and it peels off her cognitive overlay. It's also implied that the image is supposed to say "It's my fault that Kasumi died, so you must become her." ^note Or in the Japanese version: "It's my fault, instead of me, Kasumi died."
    • Furthermore, when Sumire awakens the fake Cendrillon, it calls her a "useless girl" who "chose to live in false glory than to be covered in ash." This further indicates that this is in fact, not Kasumi.
    • When the fake Cendrillon awakens and forms a contract with "Kasumi", it refers to a spell which has been cast upon her. Said spell, of course, is in fact the cognitive overlay which makes Sumire believe she is Kasumi Yoshizawa.
  • Maruki recognizes and protects Kasumi from getting her scholarship revoked and he knows her prior to her enrollment in Shujin. This implies that he knows it's a fake that he created and he's monitoring her to make sure she's okay, until he finds a stabler, healthier solution about her situation. Furthermore, with how "Kasumi" tells Joker how Maruki helped her so much, one might even wonder why she of all people needs a therapist for anything since she just looked so happy and successful. As we find out later, while she might be successful in some degree, to say that she's not happy is definitely an understatement.
  • One of the last warnings occur during the New Year Hangout where Joker sees through her father calling her "%@re...," implying "Sumire."
  • During the next day after the New Year, "Kasumi" has migraines that she cannot explain after seeing footage that contradicts what she believes to be true; namely, she sees a video of her sister's funeral that cuts off before it can show herself, and on the next area she starts whacking blindly against the Belial Shadows behind the group, before an image of her sister is shown (which looks slightly different from "Kasumi") shows up and calls for "Sumire". It becomes very obvious that she's running from some kind of horrible truth regarding her sister's death.
  • When Kasumi starts telling Akechi and Joker about her younger sister Sumire's death, Akechi immediately becomes concerned. Since Akechi already knew the Yoshizawa sisters and their father, and would have been aware of the real Kasumi's death, seeing Sumire switching the names around instantly tips him off to what's happening; he even starts making fun of Joker for not knowing this already, doubting if Joker even knew Kasumi well to begin with.
• Fragile Speedster: Overlapping with Glass Cannon. Her agility is the highest among the Thieves and she has access to Ali Dance to further boost her evasion rate, but she suffers from low HP and Endurance stats and as a result goes down quickly if the enemy manages to hit her.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: In contrast to Marie who had various moments with the Investigation Team, outside of Joker, Morgana, and Akechi, outside of Maruki's Palace she never really interacts with the rest of the Phantom Thieves outside of meeting Ryuji/Ann/Yusuke/Makoto on the Hawaii trip, and one moment with Futaba later. While most Phantom Thieves get Showtime attacks with two of their closest friends, Sumire only gets one with Joker, a distinction she shares with Akechi. This may be partly because, at the time of her joining, the Phantom Thieves don't have much time to hang out with one another due to being desperate to stop Maruki; even Haru was able to enjoy the culture festival with her friends, go to Harajuku with Joker and even see a horror movie with him.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: In keeping with both her klutzy behaviour and her unsubtle admiration for the protagonist, if she's invited to play darts at Kichijoji her AI is intentionally programmed to imitate the player's throws... badly. (Her accuracy does improve after ranking up.) At baton pass rank 1, it's even called "Learn by Example."
• Glass Cannon: She's got great Strength and the highest Agility of all your party members, has decent Magic to boot, but her HP is lacking and she has the lowest Endurance out of everyone. While she gets some decent Physical skills to compliment this, she can't take take many hits before she goes down. Given that she's a nimble gymnast, a sport focused on flexibility over endurance, the latter stats make sense. Works in the literal sense, too, as Cendrillon's lower body is entirely made of glass.
• The Glasses Come Off: Inverted, then Played Straight: after reverting back to her original personality, Sumire starts wearing her hair down and dons a pair of Nerd Glasses as she did before Kasumi's death. However, maxing out her social link causes her to put her hair back up and discard her glasses once more.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Zigzagged and downplayed. As part of Coach Hiraguchi's Training from Hell regimen, she's been taught boxing - and she's pretty damn good at it to boot (though not quite at Makoto's Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs level). However, she never uses her boxing skills in battle and it only ever comes up in her Confidant.
• Graceful Loser: If you decide to turn her down after she confesses to Joker, she'll thank him for giving her the chance to confess her feelings and that he'll still be an important person to her.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Kasumi and Sumire were both talented gymnasts. However, Kasumi was more talented, leading Sumire to believe Kasumi was a natural born genius while she had to work twice as hard to just be second best. Sumire's jealousy was so deep that it turned into depression and even suicidal thoughts, which broke her only that much further when Kasumi died saving her life.
• Grin of Audacity: Actually sports one during battle during certain animations, such as her critical attack. Just not visible due to her mask on most occasions, but can be fully seen when using DLC costumes.
• Growling Gut: She has this in her confidant link with Joker in Royal, where she claims to be full after eating a big dinner with Joker, only to be embarrassed by her stomach growling for more.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Although she doesn't become an official party member until very late in the game, Sumire is a playable character in a handful of fights long before then.
• Hartman Hips: She has these and it becomes very obvious in her thief clothing.
• Heroic BSoD: When Maruki forcibly undoes her transformation into Kasumi, Sumire attacks Joker in a mad frenzy to become her sister again. After being defeated, she's left in a depressive funk. Sumire only regains her drive to help the Thieves after overhearing them vowing to stop Maruki, and even then her sense of self is so shaken that she has to go through a second awakening to get Cendrillion back.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Sumire doesn't need to rebel against any external oppressor at all. What she has to rebel against and her biggest oppressor is herself, since she wasn't even strictly inferior to her sister to begin with unlike what she thinks she is, and she actively asks Maruki to let her live a lie because of it. Her rebellion means to realize that she is better than she thinks she is.
• Hidden Depths: We eventually learn that Kasumi lost her sister. In the winter term, we further learn this "Kasumi" is actually her younger sister, Sumire, acting out her life as if she were Kasumi to cope with her survivor's guilt and Maruki altered her cognition to allow her to live out her wish of becoming her sister and continuing her legacy that she accidentally put a halt to.
• I Just Want to Be You: To her sister Kasumi. Unlike most examples, however, she actually got her wish for a while.
• Immune to Mind Control: Subverted. In the third semester, she's one of the few characters (the others being Joker and Akechi) who isn't taken in by Maruki's false reality, unlike the rest of the Phantom Thieves. However, this is only because she already had her cognition changed by Maruki beforehand; once Maruki undoes her actualization, she's just as susceptible to his reality as anyone else.
• Implied Love Interest: Downplayed. Much like Aigis and Marie to the protagonists of Persona 3 and Persona 4 Golden respectively, Kasumi gets a lot of Ship Tease with Joker, and is the only romanceable character who has a Showtime with him (which features Joker carrying Violet bridal-style, and takes place in a church). Notably, she is also the only girl who confesses her feelings to Joker before he potentially engages in a relationship with her. To add to this, aspects of their designs mirror each other: she wears glasses as Sumire (unlike Joker, hers are corrective), she has a red scarf in January that contrasts his blue one, her thief outfit is quite literally a female version of Joker's, and her Ultimate Persona Vanadis looks like a Distaff Counterpart to Arsène. She also appears together with Joker frequently in promotional artwork for Royal. However, due to how late in the game her social link opens up, she's the last romance option to be unlocked and has the fewest romantic options of all the possible love interests, missing out on events such as the trip to Hawaii and the Christmas date. You also get the shortest amount of time with her if she is pursued, as she can only be dated during the third semester and you lose the chance to romance her if Maruki's confidant isn't maxed out in time.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Sword of Sinai II, obtained from itemizing Sandalphon during a Fusion Alarm. It gives her a high chance to inflict Dizzy. Her best ranged weapon is the Sahasrara R from itemizing Ardha during a Fusion Alarm, which boosts all her stats by 6.
• Innocently Insensitive: Downplayed. While Sumire still lived life as Kasumi she was warned to keep her distance from Joker by Kamoshida because of his bad reputation. "Kasumi" then absent-mindedly refers to him as the "delinquent transfer student" while Joker is not just in hearing range, but standing directly in front of her.
• Interface Spoiler: The Faith Confidant is supposedly Maxed at Rank 5, but the Rank 5 cutscene does not have full voice acting like all other max rank events. When it is maxed, it has a different and rather ominous message, nothing about turning a vow into a blood oath, but rather a "glimpse of the Faith's truth". Additionally no Ultimate Persona is unlocked, and when Kasumi's confidant appears on the map, her name is still in white while the MAX is in yellow, instead of both being in yellow like all other maxed bonds. All these details spoil that there is more to the Confidant. Once you reach rank 10 after she becomes Sumire again, the Confidant will behave normally: A voice acted max rank event, a standard max rank message, an unlocked Ultimate Persona, and her true name being yellow on the map when maxed.
• I Regret Nothing: If you decide to stay as friends with her, she'll be mature about it and states that she doesn't regret what she said, and will hold on to her feelings, letting them drive her forward.
• Ironic Name: Her real name in Hanakotoba means "honesty", which is quite ironic for someone who takes over another identity and her unwillingness to confront her Survivor Guilt. She can finally live throughout her name once she embraces her identity and finally deals with her grief of losing her sister. However, it can be also considered as a Meaningful Name as well, since she's also a loyal and faithful friend (or lover) to Joker, the rest of the Phantom Thieves and sister to Kasumi.
• Irony:
  • Despite how much she considers herself as inferior compared to her sister, Sumire actually does have an advantage that her sister doesn't have; She can cook better and doesn't mess up with it unlike her sister.
  • Even though she's jealous of Kasumi's near perfect talent that fueled her own inferiority complex, it's revealed she's not far away from reaching Kasumi's skill level and she has greater subtle moves compared to her sister. This is proven once she finally gains real confidence and develops her own personal stride instead of imitating Kasumi; her coach knows she's made it.
  • While Sumire is still "Kasumi," during a hangout with Akechi and Joker in a cafe she states that she doesn't support the Phantom Thieves because people should be able to fix problems on their own instead of relying on others... when she was the very one who requested Maruki to help her cope with her crippling depression by transforming her into Kasumi in the first place. It should also be noted that this is Kasumi's mindset and not hers. She was the very one who tried to help Sumire and died in the process, making the statement itself even more ironic. Additionally, Sumire herself joins the Phantom Thieves on her own volition and fights for their cause of saving humanity's future instead of leaving it up to others, further showing that her own ideals do not align with Kasumi's. Those differences make the inconsistencies of the cognitive overlay more apparent.
  • Despite being Joker's Implied Love Interest, Sumire's romance confidant starts so late in the game that it actually has the least amount of romantic events, with things like the trip to Hawaii and the Christmas date being inaccessible (and while she does still appear during the former, it's mainly used as a way to introduce her to his friends). In addition, Joker and Sumire spend the shortest amount of in-game time as a couple if she is pursued, only rounding out to about half a month at the earliest plus the Valentine's Day and White Day events.
• I Wished You Were Dead: When the real Kasumi was still alive, Sumire came to quietly resent her constantly trying to help her out of her depressed state. This is the major contributor to her Survivor Guilt after Kasumi died, because Sumire hates herself for thinking of her sister that way. It's inverted however, since Sumire wished that she herself died instead of Kasumi.

K-R

• Kick Chick: Not Sumire herself, but her Persona kicks when performing a Physical skill.
• Last-Minute Hookup: Sumire can only be romanced in January, the final combat-based month in Royal. By the time she and Joker get together, the only story elements left are Maruki's Palace and the True Final Boss, followed by the Valentine's and White Day events before the story officially concludes.
• Last-Name Basis:
  • While Joker calls her Kasumi, every other character make it a point to only refer to her as Yoshizawa^note In one instance in the English dub, Futaba calls her Kasumi, but this isn't present in the original Japanese audio. It would make sense for Futaba to not be aware of Sumire's situation, however.. This hides the fact that she's not actually Kasumi, but rather Sumire.
  • She herself uses last names on most characters prior to joining the Phantom Thieves. She continues addressing the protagonist as "(Last Name)-senpai" months after meeting him, and is the only one who calls Futaba "Sakura-san."
• Late Character Syndrome: Kasumi gets her Persona in early October, but doesn't join until early January, during the Royal-exclusive third semester. By the time she joins, her Confidant is only Rank 5 and she only has a first-tier Persona, while the other Phantom Thieves should have second or third-tier Personas (and Morgana will have his third-tier Persona by the time you start exploring the last Palace). Cendrillon won't evolve into Vanadis until you complete the Faith Confidant, and won't change into Ella until just before the Final Battle. That being said, the number of Shadows that are weak to her Bless attacks in the last Palace will likely allow her to pull her weight anyway.
• Leeroy Jenkins: When stressed, Sumire sometimes displays a noticeably reckless, borderline-suicidal streak:
  • There's one scene in Maruki's Palace where she - still believing she's Kasumi by that point - rushes head-first into a group of enemies and attacks them so aggressively that she doesn't notice she's not actually dealing any damage to them, forcing Akechi to talk her into following his lead.
  • Later, when her Kasumi filter is broken, she desperately fights Joker in a bid to return to being Kasumi. The resulting fight can be a Curb-Stomp Battle in Joker's favor, as Sumire only uses physical and Bless attacks that can be reflected back at her, leaving her with no means of actually damaging Joker.
• Leotard of Power: The thief costume she battles in features a black gymnast leotard.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Outside the Metaverse, she's a klutzy, adorkable, and introverted girl. In the Metaverse, she's a skilled and vicious fighter.
• Letting Her Hair Down: Inverted. Once the truth comes out, she returns to her original more bookish look when Kasumi was still alive, with her hair down and a pair of glasses. As Violet and while performing gymnastics, though, she continues to use the ponytail for practicality reasons.
• Light 'em Up: Her Persona, Cendrillon, specializes in Bless-element skills.
• Light Is Good: She specializes in Bless-element skills, her third-tier Persona Ella is completely white, and at the end of the day she's a genuinely heroic character.
• Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman: She greatly admires the protagonist, but admits during a conversation with him and Akechi that she doesn't approve of the Phantom Thieves' actions. Unlike Akechi, however (who publicly labeled them as dangerous), "Kasumi"'s disapproval stems from concerns that people will eventually become overreliant on them for help and not do anything for themselves. While she voices her opinion respectfully and the protagonist's responses indicate that he's not upset with her viewpoint, she's still apologetic towards him after finding out his true identity.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Becomes increasingly clear that Joker is pretty much the only person whose shoulder she can lean on. She even recognizes this and tries her best to not rely on him all the time.
• Lovable Jock: She's an athlete first and foremost, but is also one of the most polite and courteous people in the entire game, rivaled only by Haru.
• Love Confession: Whereas other female Confidants give this after beginning the romance route with them, Sumire flat-out says she loves Joker before it starts. Whether Joker reciprocates those feelings or not is entirely up to the player. All things considered, if Joker wants to remain friends, Sumire takes it in stride; she thanks him for the opportunity to express her feelings even if they stay unreciprocated and states that he will remain a very important person in her life regardless.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Kasumi is often translated as mist, but it also can be translated as flowers or blossoms. Given she transfers during spring, her name seems to be relating to her arrival in the story. Her surname of Yoshizawa does not have any direct meaning but was the same surname as Akira Yoshizawa, famous for being considered the creator of origami.
  • Her codename, "Violet", comes from her real name Sumire, which can be read in Japanese as Violet.
• Meaningful Rename: Ella is the real name of Cinderella in many adaptions. Following Kasumi's Confidant will turn it "real" and Kasumi eventually changing back to her real name, Sumire, with her portrait changing to Sumire's as well.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Not "class" per se, but her Confidant is rather strange. Normally, Confidants have ten ranks to them. Kasumi's La Foi Confidant, however, only has five, and her tarot card representing her arcana has a few tears along its border, and her name subtly remains highlighted in white while the MAX remains yellow (unlike the other maxed Confidants that are uniformly yellow when maxed). The rest of her Confidant is unlocked after Kasumi was revealed to be a cognitive overlay and re-awakened into Sumire's Persona in the Third Semester.
• The Mentally Disturbed: Sumire is... not well. The fact that she believed that if she wasn't Kasumi, she should probably just die should give you a good idea how abysmal Sumire's self-esteem is. Kasumi's death only brought that mindset to outright delusional levels, to the point that she literally wanted to become Kasumi due to the belief that Kasumi would, in some way, still be alive. The "throw it off" nature of the trope is subverted, though, in that Sumire is shown to have been genuinely crippled by this mindset; Maruki performed his Brainwashing for the Greater Good act on her because it was the only way to stop her from offing herself while he worked on a more healthy solution.
• Modesty Shorts: Revealed to wear a pair underneath the skirt of her regular winter outfit. They can be seen most prominently during her Showtime with Joker.
• Morality Chain: Along with Joker, she acts as this to Akechi during the third semester in Royal - while he's certainly not friendly to Sumire, several of his Pet the Dog moments involve her in some way: he's noticeably concerned whenever she's hurt in battle, actively withdraws rather than risk hurting her when she's driven to attack Joker, and prevents her from risking her life to save Maruki during the Final Boss.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her outfit, consisting of a leotard, jacket, and thigh-length stockings with garters, is among the most revealing out of the female Phantom Thieves (Panther's outfit shows more cleavage, while Violet's shows more skin overall). Justified since she's a gymnast and the lack of heavy clothing grants her more mobility.
• My Sibling Will Live Through Me: Sumire took on her sister Kasumi's identity after her death thanks to Maruki's cognitive therapy. She still takes this trope after the cognitive overlay's gone, but in a healthier way by living up to Kasumi's optimism and believing in her faith towards her.
• Mysterious Waif: While not necessarily lost unlike most examples of this trope, not much is known about Kasumi prior to the third term events and it turns out that she's not only important to Maruki's research due to her drastic cognitive change proving to him that it actually works, she's actually an overlay stuck on top of her younger sister Sumire.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Much like the manga incarnation of the Boy with Earring, Kasumi is actually impersonating her dead older sibling which leads her to have a serious case of identity crisis like the former. Unlike the case of Naoya Toudou however, who impersonates his twin brother Kazuya to please his grieving mother, Sumire impersonates her sister Kasumi as she wanted to live her sister's life, a desire Maruki granted using his cognitive manipulation powers.
  • Because she impersonates her sister and her thief outfit and Ultimate Persona are similar to a feminine equivalent of Joker's, "Kasumi" is effectively a Doppelganger as in the Shin Megami Tensei demon.
  • In addition, her story can draw parallels to Der Doppleganger of Innocent Sin. And although the context is diametrically different from Persona 5, there was also a Joker in Innocent Sin as well.
• New Transfer Student: Although technically not a transfer, she enrolls at Shujin Academy in the spring around the same time as Joker.
• Nice Girl: As both herself and "Kasumi", she's sweet, kindhearted, and friendly.
• Nightmare Face: If you think that the awakening scenes of the other Phantom Thieves are terrifying, you have no idea what's to come. When Sumire attempts to summon Cendrillon in Maruki's palace, Cendrillon doesn't show up. So Sumire physically rips the mask off her face — without immediately healing from the damage — causing a lot of blood to rush down her face, all while she has Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises.
• Non-Standard Character Design: She's the only human Phantom Thief whose gloves don't coincide with the element she uses; she wears red gloves like Joker but primarily uses white Bless attacks. Justified, as her thief outfit is specifically designed to resemble Joker's.
• Opposites Attract: A purely elemental example, as she wields Bless while the main Persona of her crush and potential boyfriend Joker is Curse-oriented.
• Out of Focus: Ironically, despite her prominence in advertising, Sumire's plot relevance is surprisingly minimal before the last few months of the game to the point where she might actually have the smallest role of all the thieves. While she has several interactions with Joker throughout Royal before the final month, most of them are completely irrelevant to the overarching story and she doesn't properly join the Phantom Thieves until the final palace, at which point the game is almost over. Even during the third semester, Sumire starts off important, but gets Put on a Bus for a week shortly afterwards and eventually falls out of focus after her true awakening with most of the arc's development instead going to Akechi and Maruki. As most of the spin-off games were developed before or during Royal, Sumire does not appear in any of them either (Persona 5 Tactica does have her as a playable character, but only in the Repaint Your Heart DLC story and not the main game), preventing her from getting any additional focus or screentime as herself. She did however appear in several games that P5 collaborated with.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: This is for her Shujin uniform, which is of the usual type. She's also a lot more elegant, friendly and polite than most of the other Phantom Thieves, and is the daughter of a rather influential man.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her reddish-brown eyes take on a more solid red color in her critical hit cut-ins and her All-Out Attack Picture.
• Red Herring: An almost literal case given her hair color.
  • Given the franchise's track record for adding new characters in updated re-releases, her unique five-rank Confidant, and the amount of focus on her differing views from the heroes in the pre-release period, one would be forgiven for presuming that Kasumi will oppose the Phantom Thieves at some point in the game in a similar vein to Akechi. However, she ultimately proves to be a heroic character who offers her assistance to their cause at multiple points throughout the game and serves to draw attention away from the Arc Villain of the game's final act, who also happens to be another new character that was added to Royal, and her opposing stance on the Thieves is merely brought out during a chat with Akechi and Joker.
  • If you check out the Thieves Den and look at the Awards, you might raise an eyebrow at one award called "Senpai in Life", which is awarded after defeating ???. Considering that Sumire calls Joker senpai all throughout the game, and considering her views on the Phantom Thieves during the pre-release period, it'd be easy to think that you'd have to fight her at some point. Turns out that the award is tied to Jose instead. You do end up fighting Sumire though, but not of her own volition.
  • For players who started with Royal, it's easy to assume Kasumi is the mysterious Black Mask the Thieves are trying to stop as her Metaverse outfit prominently features a black mask, she displays an odd, flakey personality throughout the story that can be interpreted as her disguising her true nature, and she's against the Phantom Thieves' methods. While her displayed personality is indeed a front, she is not the Black Mask and remains a heroic character for the duration of the game.
  • The story involving Kasumi also drops multiple red herrings in front of the player.
    • The date that Sojiro talks about Kasumi's death is the first day that you learn about the mental shutdown cases. You might assume that her death is related to the mental shutdowns; Simply put, it wasn't.
    • Her father is the director of the talk show Akechi frequently guest-stars on, which might lead you into thinking that he has deep connections with Shido or the Antisocial Force conspiracy. He's just one of the employees much like the teachers in Shujin and is actually a Nice Guy, even worried about his younger daughter's increasing mental degradation that gets worse after Kasumi's death.
    • In one of the hangouts with her after meeting her in Odaiba "Kasumi" mentions having a dead sister assumed to be Sumire... aside that very later on Maruki reveals that it's the other way around; Kasumi is the dead sibling and Sumire is the living one, the "Kasumi" that we all know throughout the game.
    • You might be led to believe that the issues with her cellphone that keep cropping up might end up significant to her character arc in some way. They don't, though the gag disappears after Sumire returns to being herself, implying that the issues were stemming from the Cognitive Overlay, even if it's just that it forced her to use Kasumi's damaged phone to maintain the façade.
• Red Is Heroic: Her brilliant red eyes and hair stands out next to the brunettes of most of the Thieves sans Yusuke and Ann (both Ryuji and Futaba dye their hair). She also has red gloves not unlike Joker's own, and wears a red ribbon most of the time.
• Red Ones Go Faster: To go along with her red-laden color scheme, she has the greatest base Agility out of any of the Phantom Thieves.
• Refusal of the Call: Kasumi is invited to join the Phantom Thieves by Morgana after awakening to her Persona, but she turns down the offer. This isn't because she disagrees with the goals of the Phantom Thieves and finds said goals harmful in the long-run (a statement that she previously made, but later apologized for after finding out that the protagonist is a member of the group), but instead because she needs to exclusively focus on her gymnastics at the moment (which at the time, her honor student status is danger of being revoked).
• Refused by the Call: During the Shido heist, she offers her aid to the Phantom Thieves when they decide to go after Shido, but is refused by Morgana. He makes a good call for that one, considering how dangerous that particular target is.
• Rescue Romance: If Joker chooses to romance her, as he ends up saving her a total of four times throughout the course of the game; First from a total creep that was sexually harassing her, early into the Madarame arc, then from the Shadows in the Laboratory of Sorrow on October 3rd/4th, then again from Maruki after he drives Cendrillon berserk in an attempt to ward off Joker and Akechi, and a final time from her own depressive self by completing the later five ranks of her Confidant. She also saves him from a group of Shadows during the Casino heist.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Sumire's sense of fashion can be... outright questionable. For instance, during one of the hangouts related to her true Confidant, she wears overly gaudy glasses and a leopard-print shirt with the word "TORA" on it plus matching leggings in an attempt to "stand out".^note "Tora" is "Tiger" in Japanese but the animal on that cloth is a leopard.

S-Y

• Secret A.I. Moves: As a boss on 1/9, Cendrillon has Charge and Dazzler, which she cannot use as a playable character without accessories. She also drops her weakness to Curse skills (although she loses her resistance to Bless skills in exchange).
• Secret Art: Cendrillon is the only Persona to learn Brave Step, a copy of Satanael's signature in Q2 (Sharply increases all allies' Critical Rate.) As Ella, she also learns Masquerade, a highly powerful Physical attack that deals two Severe hits to one foe.
• Secret-Keeper: In early October, after accidentally being dragged into a Palace when their conversation inadvertently activates the Metaverse Navigator app upon speaking the necessary phrases, she learns Joker is a Phantom Thief and Morgana is far from normal. Though she turns down Morgana's offer to join the Phantom Thieves, she does agree to keep Joker's identity a secret.
• Seen It All: To Morgana's dismay, she's totally unfazed by him transforming into a bus because after everything she's been through up to that point, it's probably the least fantastical thing she's seen.
• Sharing a Body: It is shown multiple times that "Kasumi's" cooking and gymnast skills as well as her reflexes are inconsistent and impaired, and she also shows some signs of depression and lack of confidence that she isn't supposed to have. This implies that Sumire exists subconsciously within her Kasumi filter, so their abilities and personalities are colliding against and impairing each other.
• Shout-Out: Her fake Persona awakening is clearly inspired by the iconic transformation sequences in Sailor Moon.
• Shrinking Violet: She believes that if she cannot become Kasumi, she should probably just die already, showing that she has low self-esteem and even less confidence. This mindset both inadvertently causes Kasumi's death AND becomes debilitatingly worse because of Kasumi's death, to the point Maruki feels the need to break all manner of counseling protocol and literally warp her mind to think she is Kasumi just to keep her from committing suicide. It even ties into her real name, Sumire, and her code name, Violet.
• Signature Move:
  • Masquerade, a singe-target move that deals twice the amount of severe Physical damage. Ella originally uses this skill, but Vanadis gains it as well in Persona 3 Reload, albeit as a Slash skill.
  • Ironically for Cendrillon, Reload gives her Slash Driver (which strengthens Slash attacks by 75%) despite being a Bless Persona.
• Significant Birth Date: Of the ironic variety. Sumire's birthday is March 25, the same date where she went to Maruki and became "Kasumi."
• Slipknot Ponytail: Once the truth about her identity is revealed, her hair ribbon conveniently loosens itself, causing her to revert to her original appearance.
• Spotting the Thread: Subverted. Ann notes that even though her cognition was changed to think she was Kasumi, everyone including her own parents, should have been able to notice the fact that she was acting like a completely different person. Futaba states that because only her cognition was changed, she and she alone was incapable of telling the difference, such as her hearing her father call out to "Sumire", but she hears "Kasumi" and vice-versa, although her coach can obviously see that she looks wrong. If Joker meets her in her Rank 6 Confidant hangout, she admits that people just didn't want to talk about it out of respect for her dead sister, nobody else was ever fooled to begin with, and in other people's eyes she was insane.
• Stab the Scorpion: She throws her sword in the direction of Joker's face. At first, it seems like she's aiming for Joker, but it instead kills the Shadow behind him.
• Stealth Expert: An offscreen, Played for Laughs example. When Joker tells her that he'd like to meet up on another day — since 11/19 involved fighting Shadow Sae, and all that followed — Kasumi gets an inkling that something is going to happen that day. So, she decides to secretly follow them the entire time, which eventually ended with her helping Joker out in Sae's Palace; no one noticed until shortly before said help (and even then, only Futaba noticed her "weird reading"). When Kasumi sheepishly admits this after learning Joker is alive, Futaba is shocked that they were tailed, and Morgana lampshades the matter.
  Morgana: (exasperated) We definitely had no idea about that. It's like night and day compared to when Makoto was following us...
• Stealth Hi/Bye: When coming across Joker in Hawaii, she greets him by sneaking up on him and startling him by shouting his honorific.
• Stepford Smiler: Despite sporting bright smiles, she isn't doing very well emotionally as she has to deal with the pressure of meeting not just the expectations of her peers but also her teachers, on top of having recently lost her sister. It becomes especially pronounced in October where her shot at going to the gymnast internationals were about to be gone because her teacher threatened the revocation of her scholarship. Subverted, because her cheerful mannerisms belong to the real Kasumi; this "Kasumi" is actually Sumire, who wears her many issues on her sleeve.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: Kasumi is an accomplished gymnast that almost never fails getting 1st or 2nd runner ups in Gymnastic tournaments, Sumire can only get somewhere below that, which is the major reason for her inferiority complex-led suicidal depression.
• Survivor Guilt: After losing her sister, the real Kasumi, in a car accident caused by her jealousy of Kasumi's unparalled gynmastic talent, Sumire blamed herself for murdering her sister and putting her legacy to a halt, which degenerates her already horrible depression to outright suicidal levels.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
  • Gameplay-wise, she bears similarities to Eriko from the first Persona, both having the same weapon of choice (rapier and rifle) and their Personas specialized in light skills. In addition, they have similar hairstyles and are canonically in love with the protagonists of their respective games.
  • Ironically, she takes Akechi's role as the stylish Bless user with royal motifs once she properly joins the thieves, as Akechi himself has switched entirely to Curse magic and ditched his Detective Prince persona.
• Take a Third Option: After her cognitive overlay wears off, Sumire struggles with two different ideologies she's come to know. The first is the real Kasumi's belief that people have to solve their own problems and that receiving help from others makes them dependent on them, which Sumire believed in when she thought she was Kasumi. The second is the Phantom Thieves' belief that some problems have to be taken over by others when there aren't many options, and that doing so offers people the courage to solve their future problems, which Sumire starts to reconsider after she realizes she's needed the protagonist's and Maruki's support just to live. Her confidant has her choose a middle ground: She agrees with Kasumi that ultimately she has to be the one to overcome her issues and decide things for herself, but what Sumire decides for herself includes the belief that giving and receiving help is just as vital as self-sufficiency, and chooses to become a Phantom Thief to take on society's problems and save humanity from being trapped in Maruki's misguided reality instead of leaving it up to him.
• Tarot Motifs: The Faith is of the Visconti-Sforza, specifically the Cary-Yale incomplete deck, that represents faith in others and self. Similarly, Sumire's confidant deals with first coming to terms with wanting to be Kasumi because she lacked faith in herself or the value of Kasumi's sacrifice, and learning to have confidence in being Sumire and the worth her sister saw in her. During her brief battle with Joker, she shows the reversed aspects of blind faith in someone who doesn't deserve it (Maruki and his Actualizations) and dangerous overconfidence (Attacking even when Joker is using a Persona that nulls or repels Bless and/or Phys).
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Played with.
  • When asked by Akechi during Joker's cafe hangout event with the two, she initially states that in the long run, the Phantom Thieves will likely cause the general populace to rely on the Thieves to save them for everything, rather than standing up for themselves. This later takes a very ironic twist when it's revealed she herself told Maruki to use extreme methods similar to the Phantom Thieves to cope with her own depression by just living a lie and not facing her own issues when the conventional method wasn't working. And adding the real Kasumi to the mix, the dose of irony doubled with a tinge of hypocrisy when her own attempts to help Sumire throughout her entire life left the latter being unable to stand up for herself and thus developed a serious case of self-esteem issues as a result, doing exactly what she was criticizing about the Phantom Thieves.
  • Played straight when she was driven berserk by denying her true self inside Maruki's Palace; Akechi tells Joker to basically talk her out of it, as if they went all out he's pretty sure they'd end up accidentally killing her.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman:
  • Like with Akechi's Hereward, Sumire's Third-Tier Persona, Ella, is only available on the days leading up to the Final Boss, too late to even take on Lavenza in New Game+. Unlike with Hereward though, Ella is perfectly suited to take on said Final Boss with. The new resistance to Nuke gained upon the Third Awakening allows Sumire to resist or No-Sell both of Maruki's elemental attacks, and Masquerade provides her a more powerful single-target physical attack than Sword Dance to circumvent his immunity to critical hits.
  • In fact, Sumire in general fits this trope, as Maruki's Palace has a staggering number of Shadows that are weak to her Bless attacks (five in total, compared to every other element having only one or two Shadows weak to them).
  • Sumire's Critical Hit Class build and Brave Step (buffs the party's crit rate) make her almost required for the Lavenza Superboss battle, as one of Lavenza's phases will inflict a Total Party Kill if you don't get at least one critical hit per turn.
• Tomato in the Mirror: She's been led to think that she is Kasumi and her sister Sumire died in the traffic accident. In reality, Kasumi is the one who died, and the "Kasumi" in-game is actually Sumire, and she can only hear people call her "Kasumi" while they still see her as Sumire. Realizing all of this is what allows her Confidant to go from five ranks to ten ranks.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Has her hair in a ponytail to better illustrate her outgoing nature and athletic background, although that originally isn't her attire, but her dead sister's attire. Once Joker maxes her confidant, she dons this for real.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • While she was never weak, she goes from having a fake awakening to being a legitimately powerful Persona user who can potentially evolve her Persona into a Third-Tier powerhouse.
  • Once she comes to terms with her real life issues, she's a much better gymnast and her coach knows she's ready for internationals, implying Sumire's level has finally matched that of her late sister's.
• Tragic Keepsake: The red bow she ties her hair up with belonged to her recently deceased sister, who tied her hair up with it in the exact same way.
• Transformation Sequence: During her awakening, Kasumi has a detailed transformation scene with sparkles and a colorful background as she changes into her thief outfit, akin to that of a Magical Girl transformation. It fits thematically with her Persona, Cendrillion, given that she had her dress magically woven around her in the fairy tale, but it's also such for good reason; this is actually her fake awakening, so it makes sense that it looks odd. Her real awakening, however, is presented correctly with blood gushing out when she tears off her mask and more akin to the awakening of other members of Phantom Thieves sans Futaba, who only needs to accept her Shadow Self akin to Persona 4, and Haru, who had already partly awakened and only needs a little push in her rebellion in order to fully tap Milady's powers.
• Tritagonist: In Royal, she briefly acts as the third member of the "Royal Trio" (alongside Joker and Akechi) during the final month of the game, with her Dark and Troubled Past shown in full, finally joining the thieves and being one of the few characters who hasn't given in to Maruki's reality.
• Ungrateful Bastard: A tragic example. Kasumi did genuinely care for Sumire and didn't hold any sort of Condescending Compassion towards her. Sumire however, was heavily irritated by this and wished that Kasumi stopped caring about her instead, simply because she was jealous of Kasumi's superior performances. She gets over with it, however.
• Visual Pun: Her Persona Cendrillon is based on the original retelling which introduced the famous glass slippers. Here, Cendrillion is completely made of glass. Played for Drama once it's revealed why Sumire's Persona would be entirely made out of glass.
• Walking Spoiler: It is impossible to discuss about Kasumi's identity without revealing that she is not Kasumi, but her sister Sumire brainwashed into believing she's the passed away Kasumi so she doesn't have to confront her Survivor Guilt. Unlike other characters who are mentally ill throughout the series, it's also a spoiler that Sumire isn't a cheerful, successful gymnast living a perfect life, but a mentally unstable girl dealing with the Survivor Guilt of losing her sister to her inferiority complexes. Not to mention, the one who is responsible for her circumstances is a major target and is the mastermind for the jarring events throughout the third semester.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • If Maruki's confidant isn't completed by November 18th, the plotlines about Sumire's Metaverse abilities, her budding crush on Joker and her being brainwashed into believing she's actually Kasumi are completely dropped with no resolution.
  • Kasumi having issues with her cell phone is a recurring thing throughout the story before the third semester. It initially seems like it will be a Chekhov's Gun regarding her true identity, but nothing really comes of it and it stops happening after Sumire becomes herself again, implying that the issues with her phone were actually a result of her cognitive overlay.
  • With Tactica confirming that Royal is canon,^note  Ryuji mentions Maruki in the game by claiming that there were nosy counselors at Shujin, and the vanilla game didn't even so much as hint there were any counselors. numerous questions are opened up regarding her whereabouts. Her absence in the story of Tactica can be explained as she would likely be at practice since it's implied to take place during the very end of Royal (after Maruki's defeat but before Joker heads home) because aside from taking her out on Valentine's Day and White Day if you date her, she only appears very sparingly during this part of the narrative to begin with, but after this point, it's completely unknown what happened to her. Where she was going when she saw Joker at the train station is unknown, and where she was in Strikers still has yet to have so much as a vague explanation in-universe. However, it can be presumed that she was likely leaving Tokyo to compete Overseas, which would explain her absence in Strikers.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Although Sumire perceives herself as someone that is so horrible that nobody would care about her even if she died, she is no means as bad as she thinks. Besides this irrational belief being invalidated by her sister's willingness to sacrifice herself to save her in the first place, for all her insecurities, she is in fact an above average gymnast, even if she couldn't constantly go to the 1st and 2nd runner ups like Kasumi because she was just mimicking Kasumi's style instead of the style she should be using. Others including Kasumi herself even commented that she isn't lagging very far behind from Kasumi despite how she thought of herself. She's also said to be a great cook, while Kasumi is actually bad at preparing dishes. Her real awakening and rebellion is all about her realizing this trope, and it is central to the expanded story of Persona 5 itself. Constantly coming in a step or two behind Kasumi's skill level would result in her crippled emotional state and causing Kasumi's death, and her subsequent belief that she needed Kasumi's identity just to cope with it all would inadvertently advance and affirm Maruki's conclusion that Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul was the best course for humanity. After Maruki forcibly lifted her cognitive overlay and Joker helped her overcome her crippling sense of guilt, she would finally understand that her coach was trying to guide her all along to stop trying to emulate Kasumi's boldness and start embracing her own natural grace in order to truly maximize her potential. She would apply this realization both as a gymnast, now confident enough to assert that she will win on the international stage, and as the fully-realized Violet, fighting in Maruki's Palace to stop the actualization of his broken dreams. In the end, Sumire's flaw, one that almost doomed the world, was her failure to launch her own identity past being Kasumi's Number Two, and by overcoming this flaw, she came to help save it.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Forms a Battle Couple variation with Joker if he romances her, as his main Persona is Curse-oriented, while she wields Bless.
• Younger Than They Look: While Sumire can easily pass off as older based on her height, build and mannerisms, she's actually 15, the same age as Futaba is.

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"We'll decide for ourselves what we want our lives to be!"

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