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    Yusuke Kitagawa 

Yusuke Kitagawa / Fox

Arcana: IV. L'Empereur (The Emperor)

Persona: Goemon (Initial) → Kamu Susano-o (Ultimate) → Gorokichi (Third-Tier, Royal only)

Weapons: Katanas and assault rifles

Arcana Bonus: Skill Card duplication.

Exclusive Skill (Royal): Hyakka Ryouran - Increase attack, defense, and speed of all party members for three turns.

Voiced by: Tomokazu Sugita (JP), Matthew Mercer (EN)

Stage actors: Koji Kominami (The Stage #1 & 2), Yunosuke Matsushima (The Stage #3)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yusuke_kitagawa_1.png
"Easier than cleaning my brushes."
Click here to see Fox
Click here to see Goemon
Click here to see Kamu Susano-o
Click here to see Gorokichi
The Artist of the Phantom Thieves

It was fun while it lasted. Goodbye.

Goemon: "Have you finally come to your senses? How foolishly you averted your eyes from the truth... A deplorable imitation indeed. […] This world is filled with both beauty and vice... It is time you teach people which is which!"

The live-in disciple of the world-famous painter Ichryuusai Madarame, and an art scholarship student at Kosei Public High School. Eccentric and obsessed with his craft, Yusuke comes into contact with the group after chasing down Ann in a fit of artistic inspiration. After Madarame's true colors are revealed, he gains a Persona and joins the crew.

Yusuke specializes primarily in physical attacks, much like Ryuji; although he's not as tanky, his stats are far more balanced. He can also use the Bufu line of skills. His Persona is the Emperor Arcana's Goemon - Ishikawa Goemon, a real world Ninja who would steal from the rich to give to the poor in 16th century Japan. After a failed assassination on a civil war-era warlord, Goemon and his son were executed. Persona Goemon is dressed in exaggerated classical Japanese attire, complete with massive sandals and garish robes.

Yusuke's ultimate Persona is Kamu Susano-o, god of storms and the seas in classical Japanese Mythology. In the earliest of his myths, Susano-o destroyed the property and killed one of the attendants of his sister and ruler of the Heavens, Amaterasu, after she claimed five gods he had birthed from her necklace belonged to her. As a result, Susanoo was cast from the Heavens, leading him to wander the lands of ancient Japan.

His new third-tier ultimate Persona in Royal is Gorokichi, one of the alleged true names of the real-life man the legend of Ishikawa Goemon was based on. Gorokichi appears as a Glam Rock figure with a blue pompadour and smoking a modern cigar.

In the same vein as the Demon Painter, Inari the fox, and Marie, Yusuke can replicate Skill Cards, and he can replicate cards with stronger skills as you level his Confidant up. In his link, Yusuke suffers from a terrible artist's block, and he spends time with Joker in order to improve his skills as an artist and to better understand the human heart, given that he had been mostly isolated while living with Madarame. When a patron willing to sponsor him approaches him midway through the link, his reasons for being an artist are put to the test.
  • Abusive Parents: Yusuke was abused by Madarame, his father figure, who claimed his paintings, overworked him, and generally exploited and manipulated the hell out of him. He was raised with the belief that he would be helpless without Madarame's guidance, and thus could not bring himself to escape his exploitation.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: In the anime, he doesn't stoop to blackmailing Ann — he simply orders the Phantom Thieves out of the atelier after he gets fed up with them badmouthing Madarame. Ann apparently convinces him to let her return after offering to model for him, and once she arrives, Yusuke apologizes for losing his temper.
  • Adorably Precocious Child: Yusuke was utterly precious with how he looked up to Madarame as a child, which only underscores his feelings of betrayal when he discovers the truth of their relationship.
  • Agent Peacock: Yusuke may sport a particularly flashy outfit and camp mannerisms, but he's deadly with his katana and assault rifle. Notably, he's one of the few Phantom Thieves to wield his weapons properly, as opposed to resorting to wild slashes and shooting from the hip.
  • Ambiguously Bi:
    • Or Ambiguously Asexual, depending on the eye of the beholder. He's a histrionic artist with flamboyant mannerisms who claims to have no interest in the opposite sex beyond appreciating the aesthetics of the female form, even calling a pair of lobsters as "beautiful" as Ann at one point. His romantic interactions with women also leave a lot to be desired—he shoots down two interested girls during the summer festival event without a second thought, and his behavior during both of the game's "babe hunts" is markedly different from the other boys', seeming either uncomprehending of what they actually intend on doing or acting outright annoyed at having been roped into their hijinks. Unlike Ryuji however, he has no problems going to couple-centric locations with Joker,note  and should Joker offer to strip or pose nude for him in some capacity (which can happen twice in-game), Yusuke happily agrees to the suggestion. That being said, he does have to pep-talk himself into focusing while Ann undresses herself to model for him, buying into her flirty antics wholesale despite how bad her acting is, and he's also not above staring at the girls when in compromising situations, though he always vehemently denies it's out of anything other than aesthetic appreciation. For what it's worth, Matthew Mercer, Yusuke's English voice actor, has thrown in his lot with Yusuke being bisexual.
    • In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, he claims that he's attracted to the artistic inspiration a woman can give him and their "individualities" rather than specific traits like body type or personality. Because of this, he claims that he has no type and thus all women are within his strike zone for as long as they can inspire him, which explains his initial attraction to Ann. He also gets noticeably offended when Ryuji is about to ask if Yusuke swings that way.
      Yusuke: My preferred type of woman... ...I have none.
      Ryuji: You wha—!? Then—wait, Yusuke, are you—
      Yusuke: [irritated] Enough of your preposterous prying. What I meant was, I'm not focused on any particular type. In other words... All women are my type.
  • Animal Motifs: Foxes. More precisely, his outfit seems modeled after Inari, a Japanese fertility god often associated with the animal. Futaba even calls him "Inari" as a derisive nickname.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: His ultimate skill in Royal, Hyakka Ryouran. It buffs all three stats for the entire party for a whopping 90 SP. Unfortunately for him, any Persona with Thermopylae and Vitality of the Tree can do the same for 30 SP and Orpheus Female (which is paid DLC on the PS4 and included by default in all subsequent releases) can do the same and heal half of everyone's max health for only 24 SP.
  • Baritone of Strength: Speaks with a notably deep voice, and is the most physically powerful of the Thieves next to Ryuji.
  • Battle Cry: "Goemon, strike!"/"Crush them, Kamo-Susano'o!"/"Wipe them out, Gorokichi!"
  • Berserk Button:
    • While he's still living with him, it's badmouthing Madarame. When the Thieves ask him about Madarame plagiarizing his students' work, Yusuke gets very angry and threatens to call the police. It's only after seeing Madarame's Shadow that he starts to question his loyalty, only outright freeing himself from that notion when he learns that Madarame let his mother die by not calling for help when she had a seizure.
    • Once he's living on his own, you discover that he has two more: Creating art strictly for profit (the source of one of the major conflicts of his Confidant link), and whenever someone else insults or even notes his strange mannerisms, the latter being something he's rather sensitive about.
    • Questioning his sense of aesthetics, as might be expected of an artist, is a major red button.
    • In Strikers, dissing "Sayuri" is a big no-no. When the second Arc Villain does so, Yusuke coldly tells him that said painting was the dying effort of his mother and that it contains more love and quality than his hack writing skills could ever hope to accomplish.
  • Beyond Redemption: Zigzagged.
    • At first, Yusuke believes that Madarame is, for all of his faults, still a good person deep down. This rapidly gets eaten away throughout Madarame's arc. First, Yusuke gets his Persona when Shadow Madarame admits that he exploited Yusuke for money and fame. Later, after Madarame's Shadow reveals that Madarame let Yusuke's mother die for the sake of getting profit off of Sayuri, Yusuke drops all pretenses of forgiveness.
      Yusuke: [Mirthless Laughter] I thank you, Madarame. Every reason for me to forgive you has disappeared without a trace at this very moment! You aren't some rotten artist... You're a despicable fiend who wears the skin of an artist!
    • In spite of what happens in his arc, Yusuke desperately wants to believe that Madarame isn't the horrible person he came to realize. Yusuke even wishes that Madarame would actually repent for his crimes and turn back into the benevolent teacher that Yusuke thought he was. In the third semester in Royal, this is the illusion that Maruki grants Yusuke, showing him happily painting alongside his teacher who isn't abusing him, as well as letting him exhibit Sayuri in an art museum using his mother's name.
  • Big Eater: Yusuke is seen eating all the time in the background, and is the first one to ask if food is involved with the task at hand; justified in that his former mentor and foster father kept him in a state of semi-starvation for years, and he often mentions forgetting to eat or not having the money to afford food. At one point, he even states that he prefers women with healthy appetites, though how reflective this is of his "tastes" is open for debate.
  • Birds of a Feather: With Futaba, which contributes to him being the first Thief to help her open up and their subsequent Vitriolic Best Buds relationship. Both are Cloudcuckoolanders with No Social Skills who tend to be Innocently Insensitive and display Brutal Honesty. Both are also Ditzy Geniuses with a particular talent/specialization in a certain field (Yusuke in painting/visual art, Futaba in technology/hacking). Lastly, both are effectively orphans, having never met their fathers and their mothers dead at the hands of the game's antagonists.
  • Blade Spam: Two of his combo finishers in Strikers are continuous attacks with the sword. One is a series of thrusts and the other is a barrage of slashes ended with Goemon casting a Bufu spell.
  • Blue Is Heroic: Yusuke has blue hair, wears blue gloves in the Metaverse, heavily utilises Ice attacks in battle and has a light blue phone background, and is one of the heroic Phantom Thieves.
  • Blunt "Yes": When Makoto asks if she's useless to the Thieves, Yusuke says, "To be frank, yes."
  • Boring, but Practical: In glaring contrast to his idiosyncratic personality, Yusuke has the most realistic weapon set out of the Phantom Thieves, barring Joker and Ryuji. Swords and assault rifles are tried-and-true mainstays, even if they aren't as fun as whips, knuckledusters, slingshots, or grenade launchers.
  • Both Sides Have a Point: The conclusion of his Confidant arc is him making peace with the "Doing It for the Art" and "doing it for the money" mentalities. One can truly love something for its intrinsic value, but also profit from it. Keeping a balance between the two is key.invoked This is later shown in more detail in Strikers as he recently won quite a bit of money from an art contest he entered that's actually kept him fed for a while.
  • Bridal Carry: Yusuke carries Ann in this manner when they land inside Madarame's Palace.
  • Broken Pedestal: Yusuke initially looks up to Madarame, until he learns that he stole his work and let his mother die. That said, he admits to Sojiro (and Maruki in Royal) that he can't bring himself to completely hate Madarame.
  • Brought to You by the Letter "S": Though hard to notice at first glance, Goemon has lozenge-shaped "Gs" in the pattern of his undershirt.
  • Brutal Honesty: Ann mentions that Yusuke would have been a Chick Magnet if it weren't for his blunt comments, but Makoto says that, at the same time, it shows how Yusuke stays true to his ideals.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's an incredibly talented artist with passion and drive for his craft, even forging functional duplicate Skill Cards for Joker. But that same passion means that Yusuke is quite eccentric on his best days and a flamboyant weirdo on his worst. In Strikers, he worries that a statue will somehow vanish before he gets to see it while visiting Sendai, something that Futaba, another socially awkward Teen Genius, calls out as being illogical.
  • Camera Abuse: In Persona 5: The Day Breakers, Yusuke summons Goemon after slicing apart the "camera" with a rapid display of swordsmanship, causing his mask to vanish and multiple cut-ins for Goemon as the camera slides apart.
  • Character Exaggeration: A downplayed example. He only suggest hot pot after clearing his first palace, but Strikers makes it his Trademark Favorite Food.
  • Characterization Marches On: The first time Ann models for him, Yusuke notes with disdain that Joker and Ryuji have come along uninvited as well, with Ryuji protesting that the three of you have no reason to just trust Yusuke alone with Ann. Yusuke claims that his motives are pure and that he will not take advantage of Ann... yet in a fit of anger over his Berserk Button being pressed later in the conversation (plus a dosage of continued denial over the subject), threatens to sue them for trespassing and slandering his mentor, and on-the-spot turns this around into explicitly blackmailing Ann to pose nude for him alone in his home as his condition for dropping this. For anyone else this would be a case of Jumping Off the Slippery Slope note  or a dark Establishing Character Moment note , but this is glossed over by later events, particularly when the truth gets exposed. Not to mention, nothing else he ever does lines up with such a self-centered, immoral action again note  - when Ann is over to model (stalling as much as she possibly can), he only gently pushes her to begin the session and ends up being easily manipulated by her as his nerves take over, and the incident is rarely brought up again after he joins the group. He still has his fair instances of being overly harsh, but it's noticeably toned down by comparison. Ultimately, the above incident is a blatant case of Yusuke being very similiar from Madarame, and his arc deals with slowly realizing their shared similarities, but stepping away from the things that corrupted Madarame and in time becoming a better person.
  • Character Tics:
    • He'll often put a hand on his shoulder and roll his neck around. Given that he's an artist and looks down for extended periods of time, it's likely he has a lot of neck strain.
    • Dancing in Starlight shows him occasionally flexing his hand, as if stretching out the soreness from holding a paintbrush for hours on end.
  • Chekhov's Skill:
    • Zig-zagged. In Shido's palace, the Thieves take advantage of Yusuke's painting skill to create a tattoo for the Yakuza Shadow, who falls in love with his odd style; however, Yusuke refuses to work for him.
    • He was also able to help locate the hangure's car by hastily copying down the license plate information after Makoto gets kidnapped.
  • Closet Geek: Despite presenting himself as a sophisticated, traditional-minded artist who one might think would be above such things, he has illustrated a geeky side. He rearranges Futaba's Featherman figures into Ginyu Force pose, and he's expressed interest in both manga and foreign comics (the latter of which he claims to like because of the Heroic Builds on display).
  • Cloudcuckoolander:
    • Yusuke is obsessed with making art to the point where he doesn't really care about most other things. He doesn't even blink over the fact Morgana is a talking cat. He justifies remaining with the Phantom Thieves by saying the Palace will allow him find interesting subjects to paint. And in a case of Gameplay and Story Integration, his idle animation has him framing his surroundings with his fingers as if he's looking for a new subject, regardless of the situation.
    • He's also obsessed with saving money to an absurd degree, to the point where he has cost-performance algorithms for home cooking and prefers to walk everywhere to save on travel expenses. This is partly justified, as he's a scholarship student who doesn't have the biggest income...but then it becomes obvious that it's in part due to him prioritizing new art supplies (which can be expensive) over things like food. Rather than trying to cost-cut with his paints or brushes, he cost-cuts with his food instead. Not helping is his tendency for impulse purchases, like the lobsters.
  • Comically Missing the Point: As a result of being a Cloudcuckoolander with No Social Skills.
  • The Comically Serious: For someone so eccentric, he's ridiculously literal and can say the most outrageous things with the straightest face when his obsession with art is showing.
    Yusuke: (to Ann) If you're willing to bare everything to me... I will put my heart and soul into creating the best nude painting ever!
  • Conditioned to Accept Horror: In Strikers, during the party's first night stay in Sendai where the boys have to sleep out of the camping van, he talks about when Madarame had many pupils in his atelier; some of them didn't even get a proper bed and had to sleep snuggled together on the ground, and he even refers to it as a regular occurrence and doesn't even seem to be bothered by it. Apparently, Madarame abused him so badly from the get go that his Stockholm syndrome has gone past his bones.
  • Contrasting Replacement Character: To Kanji Tatsumi, the Emperor party member and social link from Persona 4:
    • Kanji is a buff Japanese Delinquent with the requisite bleached-blonde hair, while Yusuke is a thin and neatly dressed with dark hair.
    • Their main personal conflicts are the complete opposite of one another. Kanji strives for acceptance, and hides his unmanly hobbies and talents since he fears they will cause others to find him strange. Yusuke, on the other hand, is openly and proudly an eccentric artist, and actually fears becoming accepted by others since he doesn't want to become a Sell-Out by achieving recognition and success for his art.
    • Both of these issues stem from problems with their father figures. However, Kanji's insecurities stem from him lacking a proper male role model since his dad died when he was young. Yusuke, on the other hand, had a father figure for most of his upbringing, albeit one who turned out to be an Evil Mentor, which leaves Yusuke to struggle to free himself from Madarame's influence.
    • In terms of gameplay, both are Magically Inept Fighters with an emphasis on physical attacks, but Kanji focuses more on brute strength while Yusuke is more of a Critical Hit Class.
  • Copycat Mockery: Inverted. Examining Goemon's statue in the Thieves' Den with Morgana and Ryuji will get them to quote Yusuke's Badass Boast from when he first summoned Goemon. If Yusuke is also present, he first asks if they're mocking them, only he's irritated because they're not copying him well enough. He goes on to say that he won't allow such a disgraceful imitation to be performed in his presence and orders them to do it again.
  • Counter-Attack: Fox is the only party member to learn counter skills. Taken further in Strikers; as said skills did not make the transition to the new style of gameplay, Yusuke's Master Arts include a stance which allows him to do the same thing, in addition to inflicting ice damage with his attacks.
  • Covert Pervert: Downplayed. As an artist, he's aware of the artistic value of the female form; consequently, he stares at Ann quite a bit, ostensibly out of aesthetic appreciation, and during the Madarame's Palace arc he's very vocal about wanting to paint Ann naked. The other Thieves are vocally disbelieving of him, but there's very little else in-game that supports the idea that he has ulterior motivation for wanting Ann or any other woman to model for him. Yusuke rarely talks about anything other than art, describes a pair of lobsters as being akin to Ann in terms of aesthetic appeal, and doesn't seem to be all that interested in the women who approach him. In one of the later ranks of his Confidant, Yusuke even says that he doesn't believe he'd be able to portray Ann as a representation of "pure beauty" now that he knows her personally, though he still did get pretty flustered the one time he thought she was actually going to undress for him. We get to see his dorm Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, and to say that the portrait he drew of Ann is so far removed from "sexy" would be massively underselling it.
  • Critical Hit Class:
    • Like Chie before him, Yusuke's Physical skills slant towards having a high Critical Hit chance, in addition to having the highest Strength amongst the Phantom Thieves. Yusuke also learns several Physical skills that increase in power after he gets a Baton Pass. Considering Baton Passing to a party member already increases their attack power, this allows Yusuke to deal pretty high damage after a teammate either exploits a weakness or lands a critical hit themselves first.
    • Due to the gameplay in Strikers, the agility stat and Sukukaja spell line affect critical hit chance instead of turn order and accuracy. Yusuke favors both and retains his high-crit Physical skills for good measure.
  • Cultured Badass: Just as willing to scrap as the other Thieves, happens to be an artist-in-training and speaks in very old-fashioned Japanese. He is also responsible for designing the Thieves' logo and Calling Cards with his artistic talent.
  • Death Glare:
    • If looks could kill, his critical/skill weakness cut-in would make short work of Shadows!
    • While his normal angry-looking portrait looks more annoyed than straight-up angry... this unused one firmly falls under this trope in sheer fury on display...
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: Myriad Slashes and Tempest Slash function like this.
  • Delusions of Parental Love: Yusuke was raised by his mentor, Madarame, who only did so in order to plagiarize his pupil's work and barely gave him basic necessities. However, despite the abuse and being presented with blatant evidence of Madarame's wrongdoing, Yusuke clings to the belief that his mentor is a good person, taking until Madarame's Shadow shamelessly flaunts his misdeeds for him to finally realize the truth. Though, even after accepting the reality of the situation, Yusuke admits he still struggles with the revelation.
  • Diagonal Cut: His follow up attack is a single slash with his katana which instantly kills the target after he sheaths it.
  • Disappeared Dad: Unlike all the other Thieves, Yusuke's biological father is never mentioned nor acknowledged in any way whatsoever. The companion book Persona 5 Maniacus states that he died years ago.
  • Ditzy Genius: His eccentricity presents him as a Comically Serious Cloud Cuckoolander with No Social Skills, but even outside of his artistic skills, Yusuke is implied to be gifted at quickly assessing various subjects. Compared to Ann and Ryuji, Yusuke comes to accept and understand the Metaverse more quickly, and seems to have no trouble whatsoever passing his classes and exams, despite juggling them alongside his artistic endeavors.
  • Doing It for the Art: In-universe. Despite his master's abuse and plagiarism of his work, Yusuke truly desires nothing more than to pursue beauty through painting, in one case vehemently denying the patronage of an art institute when he learns of their plans to market him. Especially poignant considering how desperately he needs the money.invoked
  • Early-Bird Cameo: He can be seen in the first trailer for around two seconds before being properly introduced in the second trailer. The third trailer reveals he's also a Persona user and a party member.
  • Finger Framing: He is often seen doing this as he looks for a subject to paint.
  • Fingore: When awakening his Persona, he scrapes his fingers so hard along the ground that they bleed, and his nails crack.
  • Fleur-de-lis: He has one embroidered on the left breast of his winter uniform shirt.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Downplayed. He gets off on the wrong foot with the Thieves at first, and while they forgive him, he doesn't initially become all that close to anyone else except for Futaba (who likes poking fun at him) and Haru (who is nice to everyone).
    • Slowly becomes subverted through his Confidant, where he becomes very close to Joker, as well as Ryuji and Ann, who all help him get through his artistic slump and resolve his personal moral dilemma between invokedpainting for profit and painting to pursue artistic beauty.
    • Even further downplayed in Royal, in which he has showtime attacks with both Ryuji and Ann, displaying a deeper level of kinship with them.
    • No longer the case by the time of Strikers, where the Thieves exhibit tolerance and even endearment towards his antics, and stand firmly by his side when they deal with Ango Natsume (who, in addition to being a Jail King, also insults the Sayuri painting).
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Yusuke has a higher strength stat than the noticeably more buff Ryuji (who spends much of his free time working out) despite being rather thin, underfed, and not particularly athletic.
  • Glass Cannon: Zig-zagged. While Yusuke specializes in dealing high amounts of physical damage to enemies thanks to his exceptional Strength, he also has the second-highest Agility and second-highest Endurance stats, second only to Fragile Speedster Morgana and Mighty Glacier Ryuji respectively. However, since most of his skills cost HP to use, he can't afford to take many hits. Fortunately, his buff skills increase his chances to dodge enemy attacks, which can help his survivability somewhat. His ultimate gun also gives him a whopping +10 to his Agility to further improve his speed.
  • Good Is Not Nice: He might seem calm, but Yusuke can get pretty crotchety with other people. He's the first in line to call out his teammates when something goes awry (like demanding Ryuji explain himself when he accidentally confirms Makoto's suspicions about them being the Phantom Thieves), dismisses criticism of his art as "unrefined drivel", and even picks a fight with a yakuza member!
  • Happiness in Slavery: Subverted, in a painfully realistic manner. Like many abuse victims, Yusuke is aware that Madarame is mistreating him and that his work is being plagiarized, but feels he can neither leave nor confront Madarame out of a sense of obligation to the man for raising him after his mother's death. To cope with the dissonance, he rationalizes Madarame's behavior, hindering the Phantom Thieves' attempts to change his heart. Yusuke only admits what is happening to him is abuse after Madarame's Shadow reveals that he allowed Yusuke's mother to die so that he could steal her masterwork, the Sayuri, and he doesn't fully let go of his conflicting feelings towards his adoptive father until the end of his Confidant link.
  • Hartman Hips: A mild example — he's mostly just thin, but a few of his outfits, particularly his casual summer clothes and his Dancing All Night outfit, exaggerate his hips and narrow shoulders while others make him look almost hourglass-like.
  • Hate at First Sight:
    • Downplayed example. He takes an immediate dislike to Ryuji and - to a lesser extent - Joker upon their first meeting, always speaking to them in a condescending tone, and even when he invites them to Madarame's exhibit, it comes with the assumption that they don't care about the high arts. It's not until he joins the Phantom Thieves that he even remotely starts warming up to them. That being said, he does become very close and comfortable with them over time, especially Joker in his Confidant. He still condescends towards Ryuji a bit, though mostly in tandem with and no more than the rest of the group. Further downplayed in Royal where he even has a Showtime attack with Ryuji.
    • A more straight yet comedic example with Futaba, after she calls him uncultured when he rearranges her Featherman action figures. This ends up evolving into Vitriolic Best Buds.
  • Hidden Depths: Joker can point out that with his high standards, florid language, and appreciation of food that he'd make an excellent food critic.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He's a full twelve inches taller than his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis/Vitriolic Best Bud, Futaba.
  • Iaijutsu Practitioner: Unlike many previous sword-wielders in the series, Yusuke keeps his sword sheathed when not in use.
  • An Ice Person: His Persona, Goemon, learns the Bufu line of skills, but on the whole is more geared towards physical attacks, much like Ryuji.
  • I Choose to Stay: During the Golden Ending, whereas the rest of the Phantom Thieves (minus Yoshizawa in Royal) all plan on either moving away or having a major change in their life, Yusuke is the only one who plans to stay where he is, continuing to go to Kosei High to hone his craft in art.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Goemon's weapon of choice is a cartoonishly-large smoking pipe that he swings like a blade, and with just as much effectiveness. The anime adaption portrays his ice attacks as being blown out through the pipe like a mist.
  • Infinity +1 Sword:
    • His best melee weapon is Usumidori, gained by itemizing Yoshitsune. It has a high chance of inducing fear. In Royal, this is boosted to Usumidori R during a Fusion Alarm.
    • His best ranged weapon is Heaven's Gate, gained by itemizing Uriel. It gives him +10 Agility. In Royal, itemizing Uriel during a Fusion Alarm results in Providence, which gives him +13 Agility.
  • Informed Attractiveness: While many, many characters in the Persona series are attractive in the eyes of fans, other characters also comment on Yusuke's looks. During the summer festival, two female NPCs approach Yusuke and ask if he is a model, and he receives chocolate on Valentine's Day, to Ryuji's chagrin. In his confidant, prospective art patron Akio Kawanabe notes his good looks and believes that they, along with his tragic backstory, will help build an effective brand with which he can promote Yusuke. The player can choose to acknowledge his attractiveness.
    Ryuji: Why ain't I gettin' any chocolates!? I called Yusuke before headin' over here, and even he got some! I mean, the dude's a freak!
    Joker: He does have good looks.
  • Innocently Insensitive: How many people interpret his initial behavior towards Ann. Much of what he says and does in general is this, combined with Brutal Honesty (e.g. in Mementos conversations, when Futaba expresses interest in trying on Ann's Thief attire, Yusuke inquires whether or not it would simply fall off due to their difference in bust size.)
  • In Series Nick Name: "Inari" acts as one, given how Futaba calls him that and Ryuji uses it in place of his actual codename during the first scene of the game. Since this is the name of a god of harvest and fertility it's a bit of a soft jab at him in addition to referencing his Metaverse attire.
  • I Owe You My Life: If the Thieves hadn't intervened, Yusuke would have wound up like the rest of Madarame's students: used up and tossed out onto the streets, forever banned from the art world. He says as much in the wake of Madarame's confession.
  • It's Not Porn, It's Art: The others call Yusuke a pervert for wanting to paint nudes, but he swears up and down that he's only interested in the aesthetics of the female body. Later interactions with him suggest that he truly does mean it and isn't just making excuses.
  • It's Personal: Towards Ango Natsume in Strikers. His fans plastering the statue of Date Masamune with ads for his novel already earns Yusuke's ire before they even meet. However, the revelation that he's a plagiarist author using the Jail system to create artificial appreciation for his work, combined with his personally insulting the Sayuri painting (claiming it has no worth beyond Madarame's fame) makes Yusuke regard him with particular contempt and much more hellbent on dealing with him.
  • The Jinx: Played for Laughs. After his trip to Los Angeles gets redirected to Hawaii because of bad weather, the group wonders if, in retrospect, he caused the rainstorm during the summer festival, and hopes he doesn't bring bad weather to Hawaii. Also a case of Gameplay and Story Integration given his low Luck stat, and the fact that every single time he comes to visit Joker at Leblanc there's torrential rain. This could even be seen as Foreshadowing given how his Ultimate Persona turns out to be the Japanese god of storms himself.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Having had a traditional Japanese upbringing, it's only fitting that Yusuke uses katana, in conjunction with assault rifles.
  • Kimono Is Traditional: He wears a dark blue yukata during the summer festival, probably as a note to his traditional upbringing. Notably, he's the first male party member in the series to wear traditional clothing in any capacity until Strikers, where Joker wears a yukata and Ryuji wears a jinbei.
  • Large Ham: He's usually a calm, reserved person. Get him into an "artistically inspired" mood, however, and this man unleashes the hog within.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: Normally he's a socially inept Cloud Cuckoolander, but inside palaces he is noticeably more serious and actually focuses well on what's happening.
  • Magically Inept Fighter: Downplayed. While he can use ice magic and an agility-up skill, he's also got one of the lowest Magic stats and the smallest SP pool among the Phantom Thieves. Most of his skills are Physical attacks, and he also gains passive Counter attack buffs, further emphasizing his reliance of physical skills over magical ones.
  • Mirthless Laughter: Does it a few times in Madarame's Palace, after more of Madarame's shady past is revealed to him. At first, it's because he's nervously trying to process what's being told to him. The final time, he's laughing out of a slow-boiling anger that's about to rise to the surface.
  • Mistaken for Gay:
    • While on a rowboat with Joker at Inokashira Park's pond, he sketches a brother and sister, assuming they're a couple. In response, the siblings wonder what he and Joker are doing in the rowboat together, and wonder if they're gay.
    • In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, Ryuji wonders whether Yusuke swings that way when Yusuke exclaims that he doesn't have a specific type of girl that he's interested in. Yusuke tells him to stop prying.
  • Money Dumb: Due to a combination of his own Cloudcuckoolander nature and Madarame's rampant Financial Abuse towards him, Yusuke's money management skills are poor, to say the least. He cost-cuts important things such as travel and food to the point where he's constantly starving and has to walk everywhere, and he has a tendency to blow the money he does have on art supplies and bizarre impulse purchases, like two lobsters on the August beach trip.
  • More Dakka: His gun of choice is an assault rifle, unlike the self-loading or manual repeating weapons preferred by most of the other Phantom Thieves. This makes him the only party member aside from Ann to use an automatic weapon, but unlike Ann, who targets all visible enemies and hits them randomly, Yusuke can direct his fire at the player's target of choice.
  • Mundane Luxury: Due to being a Starving Artist with poor money management skills, Yusuke adores a good meal. He's crestfallen when he realizes that Futaba swiped the last plate of curry before he could finish his, while eating out at a gyutan restaurant in Sendai is enough to leave him crying Tears of Joy. Lampshaded by Makoto.
    Makoto: I don't even want to know what his normal diet is like if this is enough to make him cry...
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: In contrast to Ryuji, Yusuke's frame is extremely lithe to the point that he almost has Hartman Hips, exacerbated by the fact that his diet is almost non-existant. Despite this, Yusuke has the highest physical strength in the party.
  • Mythology Gag:
  • Named After Somebody Famous: Seems to be named after Japanese artist Utamaro Kitagawa, sharing his surname (with his first name being a pseudonym Utamaro used), profession and background as the live-in pupil to another artist.
  • No Sense of Personal Space: Among his other lapses in good social judgment, he seriously thought it'd be a good idea to just casually ask Ann, then but an acquaintance, if he could live under the same roof as her and is genuinely surprised when she refuses, not even taking into consideration the fact that he already makes her very uncomfortable with his other intent to paint her naked.
  • No Social Skills: His sheer lack of social tact is cemented in his first appearance alone: not only does he chide Ann for her assuming he's stalking her, but he's completely ignorant of her visible discomfort at his suggesting that she pose nude for his next art piece. He shares this trait with Akihiko and Kanji, being aligned with the Emperor Arcana and all.
  • Not So Stoic: He's normally a calm Cultured Badass... until something totally catches him off-guard.
    • When Ann starts to strip right behind him (long story), Yusuke is so taken aback by the gesture that he has to nervously remind himself that it's all for the sake of his art project.
    • Downplayed about awakening his Persona. He reacts just about as well as everyone else upon doing so (that is, a mad frenzy), but unlike most others, he removes his mask quickly and cleanly, and his frenzy is a lot more subdued.
    • He reacts with panicked horror upon the murder of Kunikazu Okumura via mental shutdown.
    • After Futaba accidentally breaks his expensive jester doll in Dancing in Starlight, Yusuke breaks into maniacal laughter.
  • Not What It Looks Like:
    • Yusuke's first encounter with the Phantom Thieves is him getting accosted after being mistaken for stalking Ann. He was really only trying to approach her so that she could model for his artwork.
    • He also literally says this to Madarame when he returns home to find Yusuke and Ann standing outside the now-unlocked door for the room where he keeps all the Sayuri forgeries.
  • Numerological Motif: He has somewhat of an association with the number 5. He is the fifth party member to join your team; both Goemon and Gorokichi have the number "5" on their apparel (which is pronounced "Go" in Japanese); and their Arcana is the Emperor, which is numbered "IV" but is fifth in order when counting up from the Fool (0).
  • Obsessed with Food: He's easily motivated and distracted by food, in large part because his money issues result in him going hungry.
  • One-Hit Kill: His follow-up attack instantly kills anything it hits.
  • Only Sane Man: During the Okumura arc, he's the only one to consistently show concern about the sheer fanaticism the Phantom Thieves' fans are showing. He's right to be worried.
  • Out of Focus: Within the same game he's introduced, no less! After being a prominent character throughout the Madarame arc, Yusuke shifts out of focus as more party members join and is eventually relegated to little more than comic relief. He remains a playable party member for the entire game, but he never quite reaches the relevance he once had. However, Strikers gives him the same amount of spotlight as the other thieves, and he has a mini-arc of his own there.
  • Perpetual Poverty: As a result of Madarame's Financial Abuse of him, he's forced to consider how best to save money, such as by walking rather than taking transportation. Although he does have a penchant to make impulse buys on whatever catches his eye if he does have enough money, like the lobsters during the beach trip in August.
  • Pretty Boy: Yusuke has a graceful demeanor, a well-proportioned face, and a noticeably thinner build than the other male characters. He was purposefully designed to be a pretty boy (albeit with a perverted streak), and his physique is modeled after male models. This is lampshaded on Valentine's Day if you hang out with Ryuji, who complains that he got chocolate because of his looks.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Two variations of his Showtime with Ryuji in Royal have Yusuke talk like this when preparing the beef bowl:
    Variation 1: A SAUCY! ZESTY! MASTERPIECE!
    Variation 2: I POUR! MY SOUL! INTO THIS BOWL!
  • Pungeon Master: When turned into a mouse, he tries to adopt the same punny species speaking style of an over-excited Morgana. Futaba is not amused by this.
    Yusuke: Hm... My ad-mice would be to pro-squeak cautiously.
    Futaba: ......
    Yusuke: Oracle, my ad-mice would be-
    Haru: I believe she heard you the first time.
  • Rage Against the Mentor: When he finally learns about the full extent of Madarame's crimes against him, he gets so pissed he awakens his Persona and joins the party to seek closure and vengeance. However, he later admits that he cannot truly bring himself to hate the man who raised and cared for him. During his social link, Yusuke has difficulty reconciling the cruelty Madarame displayed during his arc with the kind and sympathetic man he'd known since childhood, especially after hearing suggestions that Madarame's decision to take him in possibly wasn't entirely motivated by the selfish desire to exploit Yusuke.
  • Removed from the Picture: The "Sayuri" was a originally a self-portrait by Yusuke's mother depicting her holding him in her arms. After she died Madarame painted over baby Yusuke with purple fog, to both obscure the painting's true origin and create a Mona Lisa Smile mystery that would propel the painting to fame.
  • Rockabilly: His outfit as Fox and Goemon's appearance lean heavily on Japanese rockabilly fashions, the biggest giveaway being Goemon's outrageously large pompadour. This is made far more blatant with Gorokichi, who largely drops the samurai look for more modern attire and a bright blue pompadour with crimson streaks.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
    • Following their disastrous pick-up attempts at the beach, he's the first to spot the lecherous Camp Gay duo approaching him, Joker, and Ryuji from a good distance away. Instead of warning the other boys, however, he quietly walks out of sight and leaves his two friends to deal with the would-be harassers by themselves.
    • Jokingly attempts to do this in the True Ending when Haru mentions about the prospect of more Phantom Thieves work during their trip to bring Joker back to his hometown. He tried to bail out of the car that they're in while they're on a highway.
      Haru: My friend's in trouble, and I'd like everyone's input.
      Futaba: Ooh, that sounds like fun!
      Yusuke: If this is any more work, count me out.
      Futaba: You know you want to, Inari.
      Yusuke: [while opening the car door] I'm getting out.
      Ann: Why'd you open the - WE'RE ON THE TOLL ROAD!
  • Secretly Selfish: This trope shows up in the latter half of his confidant. Despite how much he wants to paint purely for the love of painting and the pursuit of beauty, it becomes obvious that he's also desperate for his work and talent to be acknowledged; he also admits later on that his financial situation is so dire that he's also having to consider how he's going to earn money from his artwork. Acknowledging that he has these other motives is part of what causes him to suffer from his art slump; he's worried that it means his heart is now "tainted" and he wishes that he could go back to how he was before he discovered Madarame's true nature. He gets over it once Ann and Ryuji reassure him that these motives don't make him a bad person, as long as he doesn't lose his altruistic reasons for painting.
  • Signature Move: In Persona 3 Reload, Goemon gains the unique passive skill Ice Driver, which strengthens Ice attacks by 75%. Also from the same game, Ice Age becomes Kamu Susano-O's unique skill (which isn't even part of his skillset in most Persona 5 games).
  • Single-Stroke Battle: His follow-up attack, in keeping with its One-Hit Kill nature and Yusuke's own status as an Iaijutsu Practitioner. The screen turns red as Yusuke charges his foe. He slashes once, kneels and then sheaths his katana. The foe only explodes into black ink when the katana audibly clicks into place.
  • Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Slightly less on his end, but Futaba's had it out for him ever since he rearranged her Featherman action figures without her permission. She calls him "uncultured and unable to recognize good taste", constantly ribs him (even in the epilogue and spinoffs), christens him with the Embarrassing Nickname "Inari", and is hardly amused by his attempts at humor.
  • Skewed Priorities: In Strikers, Yusuke is aghast that the Jails are interrupting his summer vacation, including his long-awaited trip to Kyoto and the barbeque extravaganza that comes with a camping trip. He's so pissed that he vows to slice the entire Metaverse to ribbons for it... rather than, you know, worry about the people getting attacked in the Jails.
  • Slasher Smile: Flashes an absolutely vicious one right before his introductory fight begins.
  • Smoking Is Cool: His Persona Goemon smokes from a bladed pipe so large it can be used as a BFS. Taken further with his new Persona Gorokichi in Royal, who has a huge cigar that resembles a BFG.
  • Starving Artist: He's a talented artist, but Madarame steals all the credit and profit from his work and leaves Yusuke overworked and literally starving. Even after his situation is resolved, he is constantly seen eating in the background and often gets excited at the mention of food. The Anthology series reveals that he ends up spending money meant for his food on art equipment (and lobsters), forcing himself to ration on food.
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: When the Phantom Thieves from Shujin Academy are in Hawaii, Yusuke suddenly appears and joins them without notification, much to their surprise. It takes Ryuji a moment to realize this. His school was supposed to visit Los Angeles but got diverted due to a storm.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
    • Bears more than a passing resemblance to Jun from Persona 2, with a similar hairstyle, school uniform, and tragic family backstory.
    • Gameplay-wise, he plays a lot like Chie Satonaka from Persona 4. Much like her, he uses Bufu skills and is a Magically Inept Fighter who excels in powerful physical attacks and critical hits. In Golden and Royal, respectively, they both learn a party-wide buff (Dragon Hustle for Chie and Hyakka Ryouran for Yusuke) that essentially applies Heat Riser to the entire party.
  • Sword Plant: In Strikers, one of his attacks involves him planting his sword into the ground, albeit with the sheathe on.
  • Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Is the tallest of the Thieves at 181cm (5'11), and his looks are frequently commented on.
  • Tarot Motifs: Reversed Emperor, first easily manipulated by his mentor and father figure Madarame in believing he was an skilled artist who suffered an artist block (at that point) and later enters an immature phase of believing desire only brings out the worst in humanity after learning the truth about his mother's death, which causes his own artistic inspiration to nearly go out like his former mentor. However, he also shows some of the upright characteristics of the Emperor, namely creating calm out of chaos by relating whatever situation he's in to art.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: When Madarame tells Yusuke that he stood by and let his mother die of a seizure for the sake of stealing her art piece, he lets out a humorless chuckle, then thanks Madarame for effectively quashing any internal conflict about fighting his mentor he had left.
    Yusuke: I thank you, Madarame. Every reason for me to forgive you has disappeared without a trace at this very moment! You aren't some rotten artist... You're a despicable fiend who wears the skin of an artist!
  • Trademark Favorite Food: He's got two.
    • Hot pot. It doesn’t matter what kind. In Strikers, he tries to try the trademark hot pot in each town.
      Ryuji: What is it with you and hot pot?
    • To a lesser extent, Jagariko. It's the snack he's always seen munching on in Phantom Thief meetings.
  • Tranquil Fury: When he gets truly mad, Yusuke tends to calmly, precisely, and icily attack his opponent, fitting his status as the Ice user and an Iaijutsu Practitioner. Best seen in Strikers, where he hears the Arc Villain dismissing the "Sayuri" as trash, convincingly plays a big fan to get the information he wanted and then rips into him with a few well-measured lines before leaving.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Futaba. The two tend to needle each other at times, but actually care for one another, and Yusuke's among the first to have an actual conversation with Futaba.
    • To further hammer their relationship, the two star together in "Jagariko Interview"note  promotional videos by Atlus in collaboration with Calbee (a Japanese snack producer). One for Yusuke (also celebrating his birthday) and one for Futaba.
    • Strikers heavily focuses on their relationship, and shows a more tender side to it, as Futaba still teases him constantly but spends a great deal encouraging him as well, especially during the 2nd arc.
  • Vocal Dissonance: He's very pretty, but has the deepest voice of the party.
  • We Have Become Complacent: Yusuke is very critical of the fans who use the Phan-site and the way society perceives them, complaining that they are dumping their responsibilities to clean up society on them. This foreshadows the Holy Grail being born of humanity's desire to abdicate their responsibilities.
  • You Are Already Dead:
    • His follow up attack is a single strike with his blade then slowly sheathing it. The target simply simply dissolves a few seconds later.
    • His Showtime attack with Ann has Yusuke slice through various bamboo panels and the enemy. It's only when he sheaths his sword that the bamboo panels are cut, and only after Yusuke and Ann pose together that the enemy is sliced.
  • You Are Fat: Subverted and Played for Laughs. He asks Ann if she "gained some weight" after she shows up to nude model for his next work as part of Morgana's scheme to alter Madarame's Palace. She's actually wearing a huge amount of clothes, enough to have double-digit layers.
  • You Monster!:
    • After learning that Madarame let Yusuke's mother die, Yusuke declares that Madarame isn't a mere rotten artist, but a fiend who's pretending to be one.
    • In Strikers, after Ichinose was revealed to be the de facto mastermind and drives Sophia berserk only for her to stop fighting and deactivate, he literally says this to Ichinose's face when she announces to the party that she didn't have a problem with using Sophia as a tool.
  • You're Insane!: He says this about the Traitor after learning their motives, but unlike most examples, he adds that he pities the Traitor.
    Yusuke: What a warped thought. It's almost pitiable.

    Makoto Niijima 

Makoto Niijima / Queen

Arcana: II. La Papesse (The Priestess)

Persona: Johanna (Initial) → Anat (Ultimate) → Agnes (Third-Tier, Royal only)

Weapons: Knuckledusters and revolvers

Arcana Bonus: Increased Analysis screen info, change of in-battle cursor to reflect resistances.

Exclusive Skill (Royal): Checkmate - Lowers the attack, defense, and speed of all enemies for three turns.

Voiced by: Rina Sato (JP), Cherami Leigh (EN)

Stage actors: Kanon Nanaki (The Stage #2), Akari Ishizuka (The Stage #3)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/makoto_9.png
"FIST OF JUSTICE!"
Click here to see Queen
Click here to see Johanna
Click here to see Anat
Click here to see Agnes
The Chief Strategist of the Phantom Thieves

Justice has prevailed.

Johanna: "You have finally found your own justice... Please... Never lose sight of it again... This memorable day marks your graduation from your false self..."

The Student Council President of Shujin Academy, a third-year known for her rigid morals and sense of responsibility. Makoto is a straight-laced honor student who can't be compromised with... though once she awakens to her Persona, you find out she has quite a bit of repressed anger at all the injustice around her. In combat, she utilizes knuckledusters and revolvers, and her Persona doubles as an ethereal motorcycle. She's also Sae Niijima's younger sister.

Makoto is a Jack of All Stats; she is balanced offensively with a slight edge in Magic, and boasts the second highest Agility, with only her Luck being slightly below average. Her movepool is one of the most diverse among the party, learning Frei skills, physical attacks, healing skills, and an assortment of buffs and support skills. Her Persona is Johanna, a Latin variation of the given name of the apocryphal religious figure, Pope Joan, and it is aligned with the High Priestess Arcana. According to legend, Joan was a talented and learned woman who disguised herself as a man to hold a position in the Catholic Church in The Middle Ages. Due to her abilities, she rose through the ranks and was even elected Pope, only to be branded a criminal when her true sex was discovered. In Protestant cultures Pope Joan was considered to be the person the La Papesse tarot card depicted. Interestingly, Makoto's Persona is the only one not associated with thievery in the traditional sense (beyond "stealing" a role meant for a man), matching her own straight-laced personality. As a Persona, Johanna manifests as a large motorcycle with her face inside a dome on the front of the bike.

Her Ultimate Persona is Anat, also known as Anath, a goddess of war that appeared in various forms in the northwestern Semitic regions note . In one legend, she attempted to retrieve a bow and arrow set meant for her from the grown son of a judge. When the son refused, questioning her right to hold weapons as a mere woman, Anat browbeat the head deity, El, into allowing her to pursue vengeance. Anat's servant managed to steal the bow back, but ended up killing the man in the process. To add insult to injury, the bows and arrows were accidentally thrown into the sea and lost forever. As the bow and arrows were meant to stave back a curse, Anat was presumably blamed for the incident. Anat appears as a Transforming Mecha, an alternative form of the motorcycle that is Johanna.

Her new third-tier ultimate Persona in Royal is Agnes, named after the supposed true name of Pope Joan. Agnes evolves into a black armoured bike with golden trimming, with the bust of Pope Joan on the hood and the letters "B" and "J" emblazoned on opposite sides, the signature initials of the Priestess Arcana.

Makoto's Confidant enhances enemy analysis, allowing the player to see any potential items foes can drop and noting whenever foes can block, reflect, or drain attacks. As Makoto has been a model student for most of her life, Joker agrees to help her try to break that mold and learn how to act more her age. Conflict arises when she learns that an old classmate of hers named Eiko is dating a Shinjuku-based club host. Like with the other female party members, Joker can romance her near the end of her link. As the Phantom Thieves' analyst and the Student Council President, Knowledge is required to open her link and Joker's Charm needs to be maxed out in order to complete it, since Makoto wants him to pose as her boyfriend to help investigate her new friend's boyfriend.


  • Academic Alpha Bitch: Subverted. Many students at Shujin think she is, including Ryuji and Ann at first, but Makoto is actually quite compassionate. For example, you can hear some girls gossiping about how she knew what Kamoshida was doing but hid it because she's only pretending to care about the student body: the truth is that Makoto was furious, but felt she didn't have the power to do anything.
  • Accomplice by Inaction: She suspected Kamoshida's abuses, but never did anything about it, which puts her on rough terms with Ann at first, until Ann acknowledges that the same could be said for herself. Makoto feels really bad about this and it factors into her feelings of uselessness.
  • Action Girlfriend: She's the only one of Joker's potential love interests with fighting skills outside the metaverse.
  • A-Cup Angst: Downplayed. The anthology manga shows Makoto was paranoid and insecure about her bust size before the trip to the beach, and even went to meet Takemi in search of a drug to make her chest bigger. But Takemi easily convinced her it wasn't a big deal and that she was perfectly charming just the way she is.
  • Adaptational Intelligence: Downplayed. in the manga. While she's already one of the smartest Phantom Thieves, she puts her intelligence on display more during the manga version of Kaneshiro's arc. For example, she inputs the passcode after deciphering the clues in Kaneshiro's journal, whereas in the game, solving the puzzle was left to the player.
  • And Then What?: She asks her sister what the point of studying is, since even if she does well at school and gets into a good university, she'll then be thrust into the competitive real world. Sae, who's still obsessed with getting ahead, merely gives a dismissive response. Answering this question also becomes a point of contention in her Confidant, which she resolves at max rank: she wants to become the chief of police, and enact meaningful reform from atop the system.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: When Ann criticizes her for not doing anything about Kamoshida, Makoto responds by asking Ann what she did for Shiho. Ann then realizes that she was projecting her own feelings of guilt and powerlessness, and later apologizes to Makoto.
  • Artistic License – Martial Arts: Officially, she knows Aikido. That said, she looks more like a Karate-ka, since Aikido is primarily based around joint locks, and takedowns. This is most likely an effect of her persona, as they explicitly give fighting skills that the character doesn't otherwise know while active (as noted in a Mementos conversation regarding Ann's use of whips). The difference is also almost immediately noted, with Ryuji outright telling her that wasn't Aikido but "some hardcore ass whoopin'" after leaving Kaneshiro's bank.
  • Atomic Superpower: Uses Nuclear, an element not seen since Persona 2.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Her third-tier skill, Checkmate, is essentially a multi-target Debilitate, putting all three debuffs on up to five enemies. Unfortunately, it costs 90 SP, and it can be nullified with a single use of Dekunda. Generally, Debilitate is more useful against most bosses, which tend to only have one target that needs to be debuffed at any one time.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: Her Confidant bonuses focus on information gathering, providing enemy abilities and item drops. In-Universe, she manages to pick open Kaneshiro's Treasure in the real world by remembering the combination he used, having watched him open it so many times herself.
  • Badass Adorable: She's a rough and tough fighter, but she also has some cute endearing quirks to her, like her love of panda mascots or being scared of the dark.
  • Badass Back: Her All-Out Attack ends with her back to the camera, while giving it a Death Glare.
  • Badass Biker: Johanna takes the form of a motorbike, which Makoto makes use of to run down her enemies during her awakening. She even mounts her bike when preparing to use a skill (by spinning donuts with it) in battle, and the manga adaptation has her explore Mementos on her.
  • Badass Boast: When Tsukasa tries to attack her, Makoto dares him to mess with her, telling him she's from a long line of police officers.
  • Badass Driver: By virtue of being the only Phantom Thief who has taken driving lessons in the real world, she gets the gang out of at least one tight spot by taking the wheel of the Morganamobile during the collapse of the fourth Palace.
  • Badass in Distress: She and Haru get taken as prisoners of war by Kamoshidaman at the beginning of Persona Q2.
  • Batman Gambit: Played for Laughs with her interrogation of Joker concerning Ryuji's loud outburst from earlier. Her dialogue after Ryuji calls Joker and pretty much confirms Makoto's suspicions with another loud outburst implies that she knew he would do this.
  • Battle Cry: "Charge, Johanna!"/"Anat, come!"/"Go Agnes!"
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Makoto takes combat very seriously to the point of freaking out her teammates who tell Joker not to piss her off.
    • She has intense death glares when she gets a crit or delivers an All-Out Attack. As her Persona awakens, she also gives one to Kaneshiro's Shadow, who gets thoroughly unnerved at her. Just to hammer the point home, she shouts "I am done being nice!"
    • There's a chapter of the manga in which she takes over managing the team's money, and intimidates Ann and Ryuji out of making bad purchases with a Psychotic Smirk. In the same chapter, Makoto manages to unnerve Iwai, who is an ex-yakuza shady arms dealer.
    • She takes it just as badly as the rest of the girls if you decide to cheat on her, a profoundly dumb move with her since she has actual martial arts experience.
  • Blackmail: Makoto manages to record Ryuji and Ann talking about being the Phantom Thieves and uses it to get the crew to help her follow up on the rumors surrounding the gang extorting Shujin students.
  • Blood Knight: Once Makoto awakens to her Persona, her "real face" as a thief is this, reflecting her underlying anger. In battle, her fighting style is one of the most brutal out of the Thieves (second only to Black Mask Akechi), which even gets highlighted during several of her Mementos conversations.
  • Blue Is Heroic: Makoto's Metaverse outfit incorporates elements of dark blue in her suit, her portrait during phone conversations is blue and Johanna has a light blue aura, and she's one of the heroic Phantom Thieves.
  • Brainy Brunette: As expected of a Student Council President, she does very well in school and serves as The Strategist for the Thieves.
  • Brought to You by the Letter "S": Her summer school uniform's collar has the letters "B" and "J" embroidered on the left side. They stand for Boaz and Jachin, the names of the black and white pillars at the entrance of the Temple of Solomon and commonly depicted on the illustration of High Priestess major arcana tarot card. Likewise, her third tier Persona Agnes has the letter "B" on one side and "J" on the other.
  • Camera Abuse: In her Showtime attack with Haru, Makoto bashes the camera with a folding chair, cracking it, to Haru's astonishment.
  • Car Fu: When she first uses Johanna, Makoto drives into Kaneshiro's guards and takes them out via drift. In Strikers, most of her moveset involves ramming her enemies with Johanna.
  • Central Theme: All of her Personas involve women who were discriminated against due to their gender. It goes well with how Makoto struggles with other people's high expectations of her and being criticized her when she goes against that image.
  • Chairman of the Brawl: In her Showtime with Haru, Makoto smashes a steel chair over her victim's head, leaving it hanging off their body.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: You can see her around the Shujin Academy library long before she has any involvement in the story, namely during the Kamoshida Arc.
  • Chekhov's Hobby: She practices aikido, and in battle, fights hand-to-hand.
  • Closet Geek:
    • Makoto secretly loves action and superhero movies, and her Phantom Thief outfit is inspired from '80s Shonen aesthetics. Ryuji alludes to this, but Makoto shuts him up.
    • Given that it was Makoto who came up with the idea for her Showtime attack with Haru, it implies that she may also be something of a pro-wrestling fan.
    • She is a fan of the Like a Dragon series (which in this universe, seems to be more of a movie franchise), and can invite Joker to watch the newest installment with her. In Strikers, she's excited about seeing its sequel, but quickly tries to hide her interest when she notices Joker is there.
  • Combat Medic: She's the only one other than Morgana who learns party-wide healing skills, though hers aren't as powerful as Morgana's.
  • Combination Attack:
    • She has a Showtime attack with Ryuji that has her open with a Diving Kick, followed by Ryuji coming in from behind and batting them towards her. She then finishes with a set of Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs that ends with Ryuji handing her a soda and bowing to her out of respect while they turn away as the Shadow explodes into dust.
    • Her other Showtime pairs her with Haru: they climb into a wrestling ring, open by hitting the enemy with a clothesline, dropkick and a folding chair (causing Camera Abuse), and finally they jump on the ropes and do a double elbow drop on the foe.
  • Commonality Connection: Part of the reason why she's fairly close to Haru (aside from both being 3rd year Senpais to the rest of the Thieves) is that both of them want to change the hearts of loved ones (Makoto's elder sister Sae and Haru's father Kunikazu) who have been consumed by their obsessions.
  • Conflicting Loyalty: Downplayed. While she's loyal to the Phantom Thieves first and foremost, she also has trouble going against her sister. She's reluctant to steal data from her sister's laptop for Futaba to use, and while she tries to downplay it, Makoto notes that she'd rather change Sae's mind through some other method than stealing her heart.
  • Cool Big Sis:
    • This is the type of relationship Makoto ends up developing with Futaba in the game, being the member most interested apart from Joker in helping her open up to others and getting her reinitiated into society.
    • Makoto similarly grows the closest with Akane in the sequel, Strikers, likely due to seeing a bit of her younger self in Akane.
  • Cool Bike: Her Persona Johanna is a sleek, ethereal motorcycle with a face on the front that she rides in battle. Its evolution Anat is a Transforming Mecha that is shown to have a motorcycle form, but Makoto no longer rides it. Her ultimate Persona, Agnes, is once again a bike that Makoto can ride, and it's a stylish, black and gold bike with a lot of bling.
  • Costume Evolution: In Strikers, Makoto's summer outfit reflects her development in the original game. While the rest of the cast still have the same fashion sense they had in the previous game, Makoto has ditched the conservative tunic for an edgy cropped leather jacket (with fasteners resembling those worn by motorcycle racers, to boot), reflecting her becoming more true to herself and not trying to hide behind the façade of a meek "good girl."
  • Crush Blush: Frequently, if Promoted to Love Interest.
  • Daddy's Girl: She looked up to her father and wanted to follow in his footsteps as a police officer, a dream she rediscovers in her confidant. At rank 10, she resolves to study to become a police commissioner.
  • Death Glare: She looks ready to commit murder in more than one of her cut-in portraits.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Makoto is rather cold and hostile towards Joker for the first two arcs, and is noticeably smug when she manages to blackmail the thieves into investigating Kaneshiro. However, after discovering her Persona and officially joining the thieves, she sheds her cold exterior to become a kindhearted, friendly Team Mom.
  • Determinator: Considering she had to be the driver for all the Thieves, across the better part of Japan, for three weeks straight. The one time she wasn't, Haru drove like crazy.
  • Did They or Didn't They?: It's implied they did if the player chooses the romance route since at the end of her Confidant, Makoto happily suggests they "study somethings" they don’t have experience in yet, and wishes to be with Joker as he wraps his arm around her. As the screen fades to black, she then says they still have some time together before evening. The dating route in Royal also heavily indicates they have a physical relationship especially on Christmas Eve, when they both get snowed in, Makoto tells Joker she plans to stay at Leblanc a little longer, and on White Day after dinner, she'll ask him if they can spend the rest of the evening together. Tellingly, she's the only love interest Joker doesn't mention walking back home after their date.
  • Disappeared Dad: Her father died three years prior to the start of the game.
  • Doesn't Like Guns: In a Mementos conversation Ryuji starts regarding model guns, Makoto remarks that she's not in favor of gun ownership in real life. Also of note, none of her Showtimes in Royal incorporate firearms.
  • Dramatic Drop: After hearing the news about Joker's apparent death, she drops the papers she's carrying and expresses disbelief. She's actually just acting, knowing full well that he faked his death as part of their plan to discover the Big Bad's identity. She invokes this trope to avoid arousing suspicion in the event that she and the other Thieves are being monitored by The Conspiracy.
  • The Dreaded: As Queen, the other Phantom Thieves are terrified of pissing her off. Ryuji in particular becomes unusually meek around her, stuttering and passing off his worst ideas as bad jokes. During their Showtime attack together, she elbows him and orders him to come along before catching him in the middle of her attack. After the fact, he still refers to her as "Champ" and gives her a can of soda to placate her, which she quickly crushes. Even outside the Metaverse, the team is very wary of doing anything that could earn her wrath. Played for Laughs, of course.
  • Dude Magnet: Similar to Ann, her looks can get her unwanted attention. Examples include the guys on the beach and Tsukasa. Ryuji also shows attraction to and admires her. Played for Drama when Kaneshiro gloats about how quickly she'd make money as a Sex Slave.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Early on in the game she can be found in the library, though she isn't identified by name. Since she doesn't join the party for some time, she'll instead comment on ongoing events and then tell you she's busy.
  • Endearingly Dorky: Despite Makoto having quite the serious personality, she is (by her own admission) more "book smart" than anything, and is a bit sheltered as a result. This means that, when she's not being a hard-assed biker thief strategist in the Metaverse, she can often come across as a bit of an adorable dork when she's trying to do things outside her usual wheelhouse. This is something that's addressed by the rest of the group from time to time, with Joker potentially being the most to comment that part of her charm is just how awkward she can be. Just to count the ways:
    • Makoto never quite lets go of her love of mascot characters, and you find out during her Confidant that she's kept the same panda mascot pencil case since elementary school. Her Friendship Trinket is even a mascot calculator, which she claims is what kick-started her interest in studying. A great way to increase relationship points with her is to comment on this as a whole.
    • If you are romancing her during the School Festival and accompany her to the after-party, her version of meeting on the roof after you help her out in the jokey Q&A session (which you can do by yelling your love of her to the world) involves her noting that she always imagined a future husband being there for her like that... and then promptly engaging in a blushing verbal 180. Joker can even ask to hear that one again, just because he found it so amusing.
    • When she gets suspicious of you during the lead-up to her chapter, Makoto will try to tail you in various locations by keeping her nose buried in a big manga magazine that she clearly isn't really reading. She'll also run to keep up with you while still buried in the mag, which looks as hilarious (and precarious) as it sounds. Her deflections if you talk to her during this are also... not as masterful as her other plans, needless to say, and it's something even Ryuji can't help but crack jokes over.
    • Once you get to Futaba's chapter, it becomes clear that Ms. Post-Apocalyptic Raider comes unglued surprisingly easy in the face of "spooky" things - scary movies, haunted houses, and the like. This leads to a particularly hilarious sequence early during Futaba's chapter. On the flip-side, she gets really enthusiastic about Yakuza flicks, and this is commented on by observers and/or friends in the Phantom Thieves.
    • One of the best gifts you can give her on a hangout is a toy motorcycle you bought from an otaku store.
  • Fake Relationship: Asks Joker to pose as her boyfriend during her confidant so they can get close to Eiko and Tsukasa. Naturally, a Romantic Fake–Real Turn is on the table.
  • Fanservice Pack: In Persona 5, Makoto's wardrobe outside of the Metaverse generally hides her figure; in Strikers, she no longer dresses as conservatively and wears a pair of tight leather pants that show off her legs and rear.
  • Fastball Special: In Royal, if her Showtime with Ryuji triggers against a boss, she will jump on Ryuji's weapon, let herself be thrown up in the air, and crash down on the target with a Ground Punch.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: While she's initially on bad terms with the Thieves, after their first excursion into Kaneshiro's Palace and a private talk with Ann, Makoto's considered one of them.
  • First-Name Basis: Upon joining, she requests that the other party members call her by her first name, and she does the same for them.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Makoto's martial arts proficiency. Makoto is a trained martial artist, and has been a practitioner of Aikido prior to the start of the game. Aikido however is a defensive and momentum-based grappling martial art, while her fighting stance and techniques in gameplay favor direct blows which is arguably more similar to karate. Justified in that her Persona use focuses on releasing her pent-up aggression, which karate is naturally better suited for.
  • Gender-Blender Name: "Makoto" is a name that is usually associated with males.
  • Genius Bruiser: She's the most physical and the most tactically minded of the Phantom Thieves, as well as The Ace when it comes to schoolwork. During her Showtime attack with Ryuji, she unleashes a series of Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs and effortlessly crushes an unopened soda cannote .
  • Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: While Makoto has some stereotypical Yamato Nadeshiko traits, one look at her combat style and the genres of movies she likes (action and gangster) should disabuse anyone of the notion that's all there is to her.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Downplayed, but she admits that she's jealous of Akechi's natural talent, and the fact that her sister trusts him.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Exaggerated when she takes on her role as a Phantom Thief. That said, Makoto is still Hot-Blooded in the real world and easy to anger.
  • Hartman Hips: Her hips are noticeably larger than the rest of the female Thieves, and gets emphasized by her thief outfit, as well as her Ultimax and Catherine DLC outfit.
  • Hate at First Sight: She gets off on the wrong foot with Akechi, as in his first meeting with her, he antagonizes her by calling her a pushover, and continues to push her buttons by comparing her to her sister. At best, Makoto admits that she respects and even envies Akechi's ability.
  • He Is Not My Boyfriend:
    • Several times with Joker. During the main story when the group sneaks into Sojiro's house, he finds Makoto wrapped around Joker's leg after a terrifying encounter with Futaba, and assumes two are dating before she corrects him. During her confidant, Eiko also assumes that Joker is Makoto's boyfriend and doesn't seem to think otherwise however much Makoto denies it, which helps the pair pose as a fake couple later in the link. Even Kaneshiro assumed he was her boyfriend when he realized that someone was listening to them through her phone, but the situation was too dire then for Makoto to try to correct him. It's up to the player or not if they decide to actually take it to that level though.
    • Happens again in Strikers: she clings to Joker's leg in the dark, then denies that they're dating (this time to Zenkichi). Since players can't carry romances from one game to another, those who romanced Makoto can interpret this as a brief moment of panic, to not wanting to announce their relationship.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: Compared to Ryuji's more Western/American-inspired Metaverse outfit, Makoto's more resembles close-fitting racing leathers, albeit with a notable post-apocalyptic flair to it.
  • Hero Antagonist: Briefly after she discards her Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist status. Though she is tasked with finding the identity of the Phantom Thieves by the principal, Makoto defies him when he refuses to look into Shujin students being extorted by criminals. Instead she uses her Blackmail material to force the Phantom Thieves to hunt down the culprit. They aren't happy about it at first, but they ultimately agree about it being the right thing to do. She loses the status soon after when she joins the Thieves after they are all threatened by Kaneshiro.
  • Heroic RRoD: Driving across Japan in Strikers takes its toll, but Makoto still insists on driving because the only other qualified driver is Haru, who she knows to be the speed demon to end all speed demons. Eventually, however, she's forced to let Haru drive because of lower back pain that she doesn't get enough time to recover from.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: She admits at several points that she's started questioning her own worth as a result of her failure to do anything for students like Shiho. She's also shown to have very low self-esteem upon meeting her outside of school.
  • Hidden Depths: As much as Makoto admires her policeman father, she admits that she often felt lonely as a child in her third-tier Persona event in Royal and talking to Akane in Strikers. This trait makes her surprisingly similar to Akane, as well as to Nanako from the fourth game.
  • Idiot Ball: As noted of her Leeroy Jenkins habits below, her desire to prove herself useful ends up resulting in her making impulsive decisions that place her and the Thieves in danger, although they have surprising benefits.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: Before she joins the group, her tone when she speaks to them is distinctly wistful. However, since her words are judgmental, that just makes the Thieves even more suspicious of her. Later she implies that being a Thief is the one role she has where she is genuinely respected. Furthermore, given her straight-laced personality and not fully understanding how teens her age act, it's pretty clear she was pretty friendless as a child. Fortunately, she ends up becoming part of a tightly-knit group of friends that she cares about.
  • I Know Karate: Unlike most of the other Thieves, she actually has had some self-defense training (in aikido) before entering the Metaverse. Her combat animations reflect this, though curiously her Persona is much more generalist than physical-focused.
  • Incredibly Obvious Tail: When tasked to investigate the Phantom Thieves, she'll always follow Joker around pretending to read a manga.
  • Infinity +1 Sword:
    • Her best melee weapon is Sabazios, gained by itemizing Cybele. It gives her a good boost to her crit rate. In Royal, this is boosted to Gordios during a Fusion Alarm.
    • Her best ranged weapon is Judge of the Dead, gained by itemizing Michael. It gives her +10 to all stats. In Royal, this is boosted to Judge End during a Fusion Alarm, giving +11 to all stats.
  • Iron Lady:
    • President of Shujin Academy's student council and a rigid, no-nonsense type of gal. Reflected in her thief costume, decorated with various metal implements.
    • Ends up being an Invoked Trope for why she gets the code name Queen. When Makoto tries to think up a code name for herself, the group ends up settling on Queen because she exudes such a commanding presence.
  • Irony: Makoto momentarily points out the irony in joining the very Phantom Thieves that she was sent by the principal to target after getting her Persona.
    Makoto: I never thought I'd become part of the Phantom Thieves I was after.
  • It's All My Fault: She blames herself for Kamoshida going unpunished for as long as he was and apologizes repeatedly for it. She says she knew suspicious stuff was going on and she should have done more, but instead she just listened to the adults around her and put her head down. Ann apologizes in turn for thinking badly of her before, saying that she'd been projecting her own feelings of guilt onto Makoto, and decides they're even.
  • Jack of All Stats:
    • In Persona 5, Makoto utilizes all kinds of skills, including physical and magic attacks, healing, and support skills. However, she doesn't excel in any one area unlike her more specialized party members. The only real exceptional things about her are an enormous SP pool and below-average Luck. She can also deal good bonus damage from using her Frei skills on enemies with elemental status effects.
    • In Persona Q2 her stats are skewed in favor of her Strength and Magic, at the cost of some Endurance. This does mean, however, that she can function on either the front or back line as the player sees fit.
  • Jumped at the Call: Unlike every other party member before her, Makoto agrees to her Persona's offer of power without a second thought, being the first one to actually address it directly.
    Johanna: Have you decided to tread the path of strife...?
    Makoto: Yes... come to me.
  • Justice Will Prevail: A strong believer in this, much to the chagrin of her more cynical sister. Her All-Out Attack finisher alludes to this fact.
    JUSTICE HAS PREVAILED.
  • Kiai: In Royal, her Showtime attack with Ryuji sometimes has her yelling "ATATATATATATA!" in combination with Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs.
  • Kung-Fu Wizard: Outside of her potent Persona-based abilities, she's a fierce fist fighter.
  • Lady of War: Subverted. On the outside, she looked more like a prim and proper, no-nonsense student council president and even knows aikido, so unaware people might think she's this trope. But when she enters combat, she doesn't use aikido, but instead a straight-up in-your-face rowdy Good Old Fisticuffs style and casts magic on a bike. Justified as her combat style alludes to her repressed inner stress that is set loose.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Early on in her character arc, multiple people tell Makoto that she's useless, and feels likewise helpless in her dealings with Kaneshiro. Makoto lets her emotions run away from her and makes a number of rash, nigh-suicidal decisions, including mouthing off to murderous gangsters and later Shadows despite not yet having a Persona. She gets much better over time.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Although Makoto starts her tenure off as a Jack of All Stats, she gains various benefits throughout the game that up her general prowess significantly. Her ultimate weapon grants her high power and Crit damage, her Nuclear skills deal solid damage on their own but can also get Technical damage from a variety of ailments, and her already solid bulk can be augmented even further with defensive and healing skills.
  • The Load: Deconstructed. Being berated as useless and weak by nearly everyone around her (the principal, the students, Akechi, Sae, even the Phantom Thieves) in the opening act of Kaneshiro's arc ultimately gets to her and she acts out very rashly just because she wants to be valuable to someone. Ironically, her rash actions also end up subverting the trope, as getting caught by Kaneshiro ends up being critical to actually accessing Kaneshiro's Palace and changing his heart. That being said, she fully averts the trope in terms of gameplay, probably being the most versatile party member.
  • Magic Knight: Makoto has balanced stats all around, with only Luck being lower than the rest. She does learn a few physical skills, but their power ends up paling in comparison to her Nuclear skills. However, her ultimate weapon has high power and a high Crit rate, meaning simply her regular attack can suffice when her Nuclear skills won't. She's also got a huge SP pool, and she can also support the team with defensive skills, and she learns a full HP healing skill in Mediarahan.
  • Master of All: She's above average at just about everything in the game without being a real specialist. She's a functional magic attacker, has a decent physical attack stat, is pretty beefy, can heal as well as Morgana once you reach mid-late game, can clear debuffs, do full party defense buffs and is even built around an element that is not only rarer than average but can also inflict technical damage. The only thing she's not good at is dishing out physical damage skills since she learns her last one at level 31, but her powerful weapons make her basic attacks quite strong anyway. Royal took it a step further and gave her a full enemy lineup Debilitate, which was already one of the best skills in the game when it was single target.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Her code name is Queen, and she holds the top position in the student council and has a commanding presence when on the battlefield.
    • Her given name (真) can be translated variously as "truth", "sincerity" or "seriousness", which are all concepts she values and describe her very well.
  • Missing Mom: Apparently since she was young. She only ever talks about her father raising her and her sister and then her sister takes over after his death. Her mother is never mentioned in the original game at all. She briefly mentions her mother during Maruki's counseling session, but admits she doesn't remember much about her. In Strikers however, she tells Akane that her mom died when she was young.
  • Moment of Weakness: After weeks of being blackmailed by the principal, stressed about the Phantom Thieves, and told she's useless by everyone (including her own sister), Makoto becomes so desperate to prove she's useful that she recklessly charges into Kaneshiro's hideout. This gets her and the Phantom Thieves on the hook for a three million yen debt, though it fortunately allows them to access Kaneshiro's palace.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Though not to the extent of Ann, Makoto's Metaverse outfit shows off her curves and provides plenty of Male Gaze. The Animation particularly gives a lot of close-up shots of her rear, which her Thief costume likes to emphasize.
  • Mundane Utility: Well, for a measure of mundane; in addition to summoning her for fights, the manga reveals that Makoto uses Johanna as her transport through Mementos instead of riding in or driving Morgana.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: She doesn't look that strong, but in her Showtime attack with Ryuji she casually crushes a filled soda can, which requires a force of 300 psi. While she's much weaker outside the Metaverse, she's occasionally shown to be stronger than a girl her size should be, such as when she spiked a volleyball hard enough to cause a small explosion when it lands and easily beat the four male Phantom Thieves.
  • New Old West: She fires from the hip and fans the hammer on her revolvers rather than using a proper two-handed aiming stance. Combined with this, Johanna being a motorcycle may bring to mind a western hero riding a horse, which is further enforced by the chaps on her Metaverse outfit. Her Showtime with Ryuji even has a western theme.
  • Newspaper-Thin Disguise: Before joining the team, she can often be found tailing Joker in the school hallways with her face buried in a magazine she clearly isn't actually reading.
  • Nice Girl: While not initially evident given her reputation and her initially poor relations with the party, Makoto is a truly kind person at heart.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In an impulsive attempt to prove herself useful, she goes into Kaneshiro's club, thus forcing the Thieves to follow her, enabling Kaneshiro to get blackmail material on all of them, and setting up the Kaneshiro arc's time limit. On the other hand, her actions do have the unintended outcome of granting the Thieves access to Kaneshiro's Palace.
  • No Guy Wants an Amazon: She has very little dating experience, mostly because she intimidates people. Averted if Joker romances her.
  • Not Brainwashed: Some of those investigating the Phantom Thieves, like her older sister, wonder if Makoto has had her heart stolen when she starts considering the Thieves to be just, but that isn't true - she joined them of her own will.
  • Not So Above It All: Both of Makoto's Showtime attacks and Ryuji and Haru respectively shows shades of this.
    • Ryuji approaches Makoto with an idea for a Special Attack he got from playing a video game. He is sure that Makoto will think it is a stupid idea and that she'd never go for it... only for Makoto to be legitimately interested in doing it.
    • With Haru it's Makoto who comes up with the idea. It plays out exactly like the previous scene with Ryuji, with Makoto that upon saying it out loud she realizes how absurd it is but Haru is complete enthusiastic to try it out.
  • Not So Stoic: Discussed near the end of her Confidant. She admits that she has a bad habit of getting caught up in emotion and acting in the moment, especially where injustice is concerned, so she actually has to try extra hard to keep her cool when things get heated - it's a trait she got from her dad.
  • Number Two: Makoto more or less becomes this shortly after joining the Thieves after realizing that they have been entirely winging it up until now. She takes the role of the strategist on herself, and ends up in command pretty much right behind Joker.
    Makoto: It seems my role is to be the brain of this team. I'll analyze Mona's information and give out orders.
    • In the events leading up to the Sixth Palace, Makoto is the primary organizer of the Thieves' plan to fool Akechi and turn Sae to their side, and is the one who deals with Sae's Cognitive Akechi to ensure it goes smoothly. And in the aftermath of the Sixth Palace, she leads the Thieves in ensuring their facade is maintained and communicates with Sae to help see Joker safely returned to Leblanc.
    • In the aftermath of the Final Palace (either Vanilla or Royal), Makoto is the one who leads and organizes the Thieves' efforts to rally support for Joker getting out of prison, particularly from his Confidants. Their efforts culminate in finding the victim Joker initially protected from Shido in the first place, convincing her to give testimony. This proves the ultimate factor in getting Joker out of jail early and eliminating his criminal record.
  • Oblivious to Love: During her Confidant story, any of Joker's attempts to flirt with her go right over her head. She only catches on if he flat out says that he wants to start dating her in Rank 9.
  • Odd Friendship: With Eiko, a girl who doesn't have very good grades or much desire to go into higher education, and has a boyfriend on the side. Their friendship goes through a rough spot when Eiko gets angry at Makoto's suspicion that Eiko's boyfriend is up to no good, but after Makoto's vindicated, the two reconcile.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: As Futaba reveals to the player after Joker returns back after faking his death, Makoto woke up one night realizing the possibilities of a Cognitive Akechi inside Sae's Palace, which the real Akechi could accidentally run into and ruin their plan to fake Joker's death. So the team heads to the Metaverse, and Makoto ends up singlehandedly knocking out Cognitive Akechi and tying him up somewhere inside Sae's Palace far from the path to the interrogation room to prevent that from happening.
  • Passive Aggressive Combat: Makoto's method of investigation of the Phantom Thieves kind of boils down to this. Already stressed out that Kobayakawa pushed this responsibility onto her, she immediately hones in on Joker and the others likely being the Thieves. She strikes up conversations with them and hints at how suspicious they are, hoping to goad them into confessing. During one encounter with Joker on the morning commute, she'll casually remark that she hopes the culprit will come forward.
  • Pet the Dog: While she's initially in opposition to the Phantom Thieves, a few scenes show that Makoto is a decent person at heart.
    • In Royal, after Shiho's suicide attempt, Makoto can be seen talking to a teacher, who's mainly concerned about keeping the students quiet. Makoto is horrified, saying that helping Shiho comes first.
    • In the anime, Makoto is following Ren when an elderly woman falls. Makoto abandons her pursuit of Ren to help the woman, resulting in Ren boarding the subway and leaving her behind.
    • During the search for information on the gang, Makoto calls Ren to thank him for his help and apologize.
  • Post-Apunkalyptic Armor: Much to Ryuji's amusement, Makoto's Phantom Thief uniform resembles skintight biker armor in the vein of this, to the point where he even dubs her "Ms. Post-Apocalyptic Raider" and "Fist of the Phantom Star". She's not quite fond of either nickname.
  • Power Fist: Utilizes various kinds of caesti, knuckledusters, and other fist implements as melee weapons and happens to be the only Phantom Thief who uses their fists in combat, though she also mentions having some previous unarmed self-defense training. Her special character buff in Strikers allows her to coat her fists in nuclear energy for a brief period of time.
  • Precision F-Strike: Model student Makoto only ever swears when her emotions boil over, which isn't very often. Her most notable is just before awakening her Persona, after Shadow Kaneshiro threatens to make a sex slave of her big sister.
    Makoto: Shut your damn mouth, you money-grubbing asshole!
  • The Profiler: Makoto's particular skillset that she brings to the team, along with being The Strategist, is her keen ability on figuring out people.
    • When tasked by the principal to track down the Phantom Thieves, Makoto almost immediately hones in on Joker and the others being the prime suspects because they have the strongest known motives to target Kamoshida.
    • Makoto catches all the red flags about Eiko's boyfriend, and sure enough, Tsukasa later on proves to be the Honey Trap component of a scamming/prostitution ring preying on lonely young women like her.
    • In The Night Breakers, a Perspective Flip Audio Play of the events of the Persona 5: The Day Breakers OVA, Makoto easily deduced that the Burglary Ring was at least partially motivated by the thrill of committing a crime rather than just the profit. She pointed out to the Phantom Thieves that the robbers stole goods they couldn't easily turn into cash, like booze or expensive perishables, and took with them objects that likely were intended as trophies.
    • Also gets Gameplay and Story Integration as doing her confidant allows her to take over from Morgana in doing analysis of shadows in Palaces and Mementos.
  • Properly Paranoid: In her confidant, she notices something's off about Tsukasa, but initially has no proof. It turns out that he's a con man who wants to trick Eiko into selling herself to the sex trade.
    • In the cutscene where she officially joins the Phantom Thieves, she takes the team to task for assuming the Metaverse Navigator app is secure. This provides early Foreshadowing of both Futaba's role in the next arc and the fact that the entire thing is a rigged game.
  • Proper Tights with a Skirt: She wears long black leggings with her uniform skirt, as well as with the all the DLC uniforms, and happens to be an upstanding person.
  • Rage Breaking Point: After weeks of being used and having her morals and capabilities called into question nonstop by seemingly everyone around her, she finally loses it when Shadow Kaneshiro threatens her older sister and mocks her powerlessness, her two biggest sore spots. This is what allows Makoto to awaken her Persona.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: The President of the Shujin Academy student council also happens to be pretty badass. She's also the Phantom Thieves' chief strategist. Still, the rest of the party is notably scared of "Queen" when it's appropriate.
  • Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs:
    • In Persona 5 Royal, she does this as part of her Showtime attack with Ryuji. In one version of the Showtime she even goes "ATATATATATATA!"
    • Her last combo finisher in Persona 5 Strikers is a series of Frei-powered punches. Her Air Combo is made of rapid-fire kicks.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: She has dark reddish-brown eyes and her melee fighting style involves savagely beating the snot out of her opponents. Take extra warning when she lands a critical; those eyes become bright and terrifying.
  • Red Herring:
    • An early one happens when Makoto threatens to reveal the Phantom Thieves' identity to the principal, which leads to the Kaneshiro events. This is meant to hint that she could be a target or even the traitor, but she very much isn't either of these.
    • Since her sending the Calling Card out to her sister Sae is the last plot event to happen before the In Medias Res introduction, the game briefly tries to get you think she is the party's traitor. Since she is the closest to Sae, she has hesitation sending out the Calling Card and cries over having to steal her heart at the end of the scene. This might have been done to make the player think that Makoto is the traitor out of an issue of conflicting loyalty. As this trope indicates, she isn't.
  • The Red Mage: As befits her Jack of All Stats role, she has decently powerful offensive magic under the Nuke element, but she also has party wide healing, something she shares with Morgana (though lacking all of his debuff cures).
  • The Reliable One: Deconstructed. The principal exploits her as president by forcing her to do his dirty work (like looking into a hangure) and hanging a college recommendation over her head. But at home Sae, who constantly pushes her to be ambitious and is the one she really wants to please, still thinks she's a burden and actually says it straight to her face in a fit of anger one night. The next day Makoto's so desperate to be useful to someone that she recklessly goes to confront Kaneshiro alone.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: Her firearm specialty is revolvers.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: While looking into the Phantom Thieves, Makoto decides to tail Joker because of the nasty rumors circulating about him. The rumors are false, but her target of suspicion is correct.
  • Robot Girl:
    • Discussed. She isn't a robot but her classmates (notably Eiko) believe her to have the personality of one. The reason her classmates get this impression from her is that they believe she blindly follows the principal's orders, doesn't show a lot of emotion, and is very focused on getting good grades. Even among the Phantom Thieves she takes on the role of analyzing and memorizing enemy data much like a computer would and even has a few robot-like mannerisms. One example is when the Phantom Thieves find a treasure chest in Mementos she will tell them to "await Joker's orders". In Dancing in Starlight, her movements are quite stiff to the point that they can be considered robotic.
    • Played straight with her Ultimate Persona Anat which actually is a Robot Girl in the same vein as Arcee from Transformers. In fact its robotic appearance may even allude to Makoto's robot-like qualities.
    • At one point in her confidant, she confesses her fears about seeming robotic. Joker can respond by saying "beep boop", which unsurprisingly gains him no points.
  • Romantic Fake–Real Turn: How she and Joker get together if you choose her as a Love Interest.
  • Scarf of Asskicking: She fights shadows hand-to-hand in the Metaverse and wears a long black scarf while in her thief outfit.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Makoto's highly idealistic and determined to fight for justice, in contrast to the cynical and bitter Sae.
  • Signature Move: Cosmic Flare, originally a severe-tier multi-target Nuke skill, is reimagined as Anat's version of Megidolaon in Persona 3 Reload. On the other hand, Johanna has Strike Driver, which strengthens Strike attacks by 75%.
  • Significant Wardrobe Shift: In Strikers, while her friends have stuck with their Consistent Clothing Style, Makoto has notably traded in her conservative tunic and plain skirted bikini with an edgier cropped jacket and a sportier bikini, showing that's she's being more true to herself and not forcing herself to conform to the idea of the perfect student counsel president like she had in high school.
  • Silk Hiding Steel: Makoto is a prim, proper young lady who just wants her social life to run smoothly, yet also possesses a more violent, combative side that manifests during hostile situations.
  • Situational Damage Attack: Makoto's Frei skills will do increased damage if an enemy is already suffering from an elemental status ailment such as Burn, Freeze, or Shock.
  • Spell Blade: Like Ann, Makoto can infuse her knuckledusters with Nuclear in Strikers.
  • Stalker without a Crush: During the latter parts of Yusuke's arc she starts following Joker around school and the rest of the city because of her suspicions that he's connected to the Phantom Thieves. It isn't until after she joins the group and the player steals Kaneshiro's heart that the player can start her Confidant and potentially pursue a romance.
  • The Strategist:
    • Becomes one for the team. When she first gets the rundown of how the Thieves operate, she's pretty shocked to hear that they have basically just been winging it the whole time. She immediately takes it upon herself to form plans for them. From that point on, her voice takes over for Morgana's on the Analysis screen and advancing her Confidant adds a lot more info to that screen.
    • This comes into full fruition in November where Makoto masterminds the plan to fake Joker's death to lure Akechi and the Antisocial Force into a false sense of security. Although Makoto admits that it entirely hinged on Joker being able to convince Sae to believe in him and when she first heard the news of his apparent suicide, she wasn't fully confident that they had actually succeeded.
  • Student Council President: She's the head of the student government at Shujin Academy. Interestingly, it's a deconstruction of the role with nearly all the "anime" fantastical elements removed. Instead of being beloved by all, impossibly perfect, and more powerful than even the teachers, she's a completely powerless glorified gopher for the principal, all the students hate her because they assume she's in on the abuse coverup and sides with Kamoshida, and all the responsibility is a massive struggle for her, leaving her a far cry from the usual student council head role.
  • Sweet and Sour Grapes: While some people are somewhat jealous of Makoto's grades, Makoto has grown disillusioned with studying, as she starts to wonder what good it will do her.
  • Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: She spends the Madarame arc trying to discover the true identities of the Phantom Thieves at Principal Kobayakawa's request. It doesn't last when she realizes the Principal is completely amoral, and she takes to threatening the Phantom Thieves without his involvement.
  • Tarot Motifs: The Reversed High Priestess represents withdrawal, silence, and disconnection from intuition, and her life is in utmost chaos as the Principal wants her to look into the Phantom Thieves instead of investigating students being extorted by the local gang and her desire to be both a bringer of justice and an upstanding citizen. The Upright High Priestess, on the other hand, represents intuition, sacred knowledge, and finding balance between your feminine and masculine aspects. As The Strategist next to Futaba and Morgana, she does have plenty of intuition as well as an eagerness to learn more about the world. There's also the fact that she's kind and encouraging to the people in her life while still being fully capable of punching in the teeth of anyone that threatens them.
  • Team Mom: Big time. Being the oldest and most responsible, Makoto has a tendency to look out for the others. This is especially notable with Futaba, as well as a lot of her party chat while driving around in Mementos. She also typically speaks for the group as a whole whenever they deal with adults. In Strikers, being the only one with both a license and sufficient driving experiencenote , Makoto ends up being the main driver of the Phantom Thieves in their camp car across all of Japan to deal with the Jail incidents. She is also the primary liaison of the party when they initially deal with Zenkichi Hasegawa. When the Thieves meet Zenkichi's daughter Akane, Makoto is the one who suggests cooking dinner for her, and helps her with her homework. She later lectures Akane on closing her father off when he's trying to make amends. Akane even cries because Makoto's behavior reminds the former of her recently deceased mother.
  • Thicker Than Water:
    • While Makoto's relationship with her sister is strained as a result of Sae's various issues, Makoto still cares for Sae a great deal and thus finds it quite painful to face Sae's own Shadow, in part because it's born out of Sae's jealousy toward her.
    • It gets revealed in November that Makoto learned that Sae had a palace rather early on. It's implied that she figured it out either during or shortly after the Kaneshiro incident, but opted to never tell her teammates as she was hoping that she could prevent Sae from spiraling without necessitating making her a target. Makoto also admits that her main motivation for joining the Phantom Thieves was actually to protect Sae.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Makoto spends the early parts of the game being rather antagonistic toward the thieves in the hopes of getting them to slip up and only lets her guard down once she becomes one of them. Somewhat downplayed in that she explains to Ann she was being so harsh as a coping mechanism for her stress, trying to appear more in control than she actually was. Once she finally acknowledges she's just being used by Kobayakawa she undergoes a mini Jerkass Realization over the course of a week, the end of which lets her hash things out with the group so they understand where she's coming from.
  • Undercover as Lovers: Midway through her Confidant, she asks Joker to pose as her boyfriend, which requires maxed out Charm to convince her friend Eiko that Joker measures up to Eiko's boyfriend. Obviously, Joker can choose to pursue her for real after Eiko's problems are dealt with, or otherwise remain friends.
  • Unprovoked Pervert Payback: She beats up the boys during the Hot Springs Episode in Strikers after dismissing their explanation for why they were sneaking around the hot springs (they were trying to leave since they accidentally stayed in after the allotted time).
  • Unstoppable Rage: When this shy and somewhat meek girl gets pushed over the edge by Kaneshiro (and everyone including her own sister calling her useless), she awakens her Persona and proceeds to mow down every unfortunate mook in her path.
  • Waistcoat of Style: She wears a black one as part of her Non-Uniform Uniform.
  • Weapon Specialization: She is a straight-laced honor student who uses fist weapons in conjunction with her aikido training, who also comes from a family of police officers (and has a love of action films), hence her use of revolvers.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Towards her sister and legal guardian Sae. She overachieves in school and reluctantly does the principal's bidding to further her academic career all for her sister, because she's grateful to Sae for taking her in and doesn't want to weigh her down even more. Sae calling her a burden (which Ann inadvertently reminds her of by calling her useless) is the main catalyst behind Makoto uncharacteristically storming the mafia's hideout. Later on in her confidant, she partly grows out of it when she decides to apply herself to her studies for the sake of her own dreams, rather than just for her sister.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Along with Haru, their Showtime Combination Attack is a shout-out to Women's Pro-Wrestling. They generate a wrestling ring, Makoto uses a running clothesline, Haru uses a dropkick, and then Makoto whacks them over the head with a steel folding chair. Afterwards, they both climb to the top rope and do a double elbow drop.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: Inverted. Although Makoto is comfortable with a conservative, feminine image, she's actually more attracted to empowering, but traditionally masculine hobbies, taboo for women in Japan. These include martial arts, motorcycles, action movies and shounen manga. She is unable to enjoy them in the open, and invites the protagonist to watch an action movie so she isn't seen going by herself.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: She manages to get through to her sister's Shadow (and by extension, her sister herself) by reminding Sae of the sense of justice she once possessed.

    Futaba Sakura 

Futaba Sakura / Oracle (Navi)

Arcana: IX. L'Hermite (The Hermit)

Persona: Necronomicon (Initial) → Prometheus (Ultimate) → Al Azif (Third-Tier, Royal only)

Weapons: N/A

Arcana Bonus: Free buffs and recovery, chance to instantly map Mementos floors, chance to block fatal attacks, chance to reboot searched treasure chests, chance to instantly Hold Up enemies at the start of battle, chance to swap out KO'd party members.

Exclusive Skill (Royal): Ultimate Support - Chance to fully restore party's HP and remove any non-unique negative status effects.

Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (JP), Erica Lindbeck (EN)

Stage actors: Mei Fukuda (The Stage)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/futaba_6.png
"Here come the buffs!"
Click here to see Oracle
Click here to see Necronomicon
Click here to see Prometheus
Click here to see Al Azif
The Genius Hacker of the Phantom Thieves

Git gud!

Necronomicon: "What denies you is an illusion... A curse put upon you by the heartless... You knew from the very beginning... And yet, you cowered in fear. […] Will you die as you are told? Who will you obey? Cursed words spat out by a seething illusion? Or the truth within your own soul? […] Contract... I am thou, thou art I. The forbidden wisdom has been revealed. No mysteries, no illusions will deceive you any longer."

A 15-year-old Playful Hacker who eventually replaces Morgana as the Phantom Thieves' Mission Control. Although her technological prowess is second to none, a mysterious incident years prior to the events of the game left Futaba a socially-crippled Hikikomori unable to leave her own house.

Even though she's no front-line combatant, unlike Morgana, she can scan enemies for weaknesses and resistances, and learns an assortment of status-enhancing and healing skills which she employs at random—though increasingly often as her Confidant is leveled. Her initial Persona is Necronomicon of the Hermit Arcana, the Tome of Eldritch Lore from H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Despite its name, Necronomicon takes the appearance of a retro-futuristic UFO, the alien spaceships of urban legend rumored to abduct people and livestock.

Her Ultimate Persona is Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from Mount Olympus to give to humanity. He manifests as a giant flaming sphere with rainbow Tron Lines forming a smiling face.

Her new third-tier ultimate Persona in Royal is Al Azif, named after the original Arabic title of the Necronomicon. Al Azif appears as a sleek, angular starship bearing resemblance to a Black Triangle, another type of UFO.

Once she becomes involved with the Phantom Thieves, her Confidant focuses on her gradual recovery from her time as a shut-in. Joker, as her designated "key item", is charged with helping her develop the coping skills she needs to reintegrate into the outside world, and eventually reconnecting her with a childhood friend who needs help only the Phantom Thieves can provide. Like the other female party members, Futaba is also a possible Love Interest for Joker.
  • AB Negative: Her blood type, according to the artbook. Since most Japanese people are RH+, to the tune of 99% of the population, the distinction is very significant, likely meant to symbolize her isolation from the rest of the world.
  • A-Cup Angst: A Running Gag is Futaba's recurring interest in Ann's boobs and wondering how she got them so big, which later applies slightly to Haru as well.
  • Abusive Parents: Neither her mother before her death nor her adoptive father, but her extended family are different beasts entirely. In particular, her uncle Youji Isshiki starved her, forced her to sleep on the floor "like an animal", and refused to let her bathe before Sojiro intervened and took custody of her. When he appears in Sojiro's Confidant, he still has no qualms about calling her names and trying to hit her.
  • Acid Reflux Nightmare: If Joker spends Christmas Eve at Leblanc, she has an unusual dream about Sojiro turning into something after eating too much turkey.
  • Actually, I Am Him: The Thieves recruit her to handle a hacker group called Medjed that has been issuing internationally-televised threats against them. It turns out that she's the original Medjed (her handle before she starting going by Alibaba), and that the "Medjed" threatening the Thieves is a corporate executive making empty threats to the Thieves and coasting off her reputation.
  • Affectionate Gesture to the Head: This was Futaba's mother's way of showing her that she was pleased with her, and in her Rank 8 Confidant event, Futaba asks Joker to "pat-pat" her on the head to praise her for completing a years-old item on a promise list from Wakaba. Unknowingly in Love as she is, though, she's caught completely off-guard by just how different the gesture feels when it's coming from Joker — she leaps out from under his hand and has to take a few minutes to catch her breath.
  • Age-Inappropriate Dress: She is 15 and markedly less mature looking than the other lady Phantom Thieves, but this does not stop her from having an extremely skimpy High Cut costume in Dancing in Starlight. She also wears a bandeau in promotional art for Mementos Mission.
  • Airplane Arms: She runs in this manner. However, as she never moves outside of cutscenes, the only way to see this is by using her Transformation Tile in the Thieves Den in Royal.
  • Ambiguously Bi:
    • She's very much enamored by the "kinky" Phantom Thief costumes for the ladies. Even Ryuji picks up on it. That being said, she's also one of the female Confidants who always develops a crush on Joker regardless of whether or not he pursues a romantic relationship with her (albeit of the Unknowingly in Love variety, as she never fully acknowledges her feelings unless Joker confesses to her), and her third semester Mementos dialogue with Haru implies that she's at least heteroromantic.
    • In response to Ann complaining about how bumpy the train tracks are in Mementos, Futaba mentions that "they" are so big and bouncy she doesn't know where to look.
    • If she's Makoto's partner in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, she'll try to grab Makoto's butt. If she's Ann's partner, she tries to grab Ann's boobs.
    • In Strikers, Futaba gushes over Ann's boobs again in a bathhouse. She also gushes over Haru's in the same scene.
  • And Call Him "George": Unfortunately for Morgana, Futaba really, really likes to pinch his cheeks.
  • Badass Adorable: She's the smallest (and before the third semester, youngest) human member of the Phantom Thieves, and she was already a vigilante hacktivist before any of the others could even fathom what Personas were. In Persona 5R, Necronomicon is shown dropping giant bombs on the enemy.
  • Badass Boast: She delivers one at the start of the fight with the Big Bad.
    Futaba: Risking our lives to stop rotten adults... that's why we're Phantom Thieves!
  • Bag of Spilling: Is the most drastically affected by this in Tactica, with her offensive skills such as Position Hack gone altogether.
  • Bastard Angst: Averted. Futaba doesn't seem much bothered that her mother Wakaba chose to raise her alone, despite the heavy stigma children born out of wedlock face in Japan. But then again, she's got bigger fish to fry.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: She spent the better part of two years as a shut-in who refused to leave her dark room brimming with trash and did almost nothing but work on her computer and eat junk food. Nevertheless, she emerges slender with good skin and a well-maintained dye job, apparently no worse for wear.
  • Bespectacled Cutie: She's a shy, socially awkward girl with big round glasses that make her even more endearing.
  • Big Eater: Whenever she's taken out to eat, she wolfs down her food faster than anybody else. In the anime, when waiting for Haru and Morgana in Mementos, she's shown polishing off several cups of Jagariko.
  • Big "NO!": In Royal, Futaba will intervene and stop an attack that would have KO'd one or more party members once per battle. She screams "NOOOOOOO!" just as the otherwise fatal blow is about to land.
  • Birds of a Feather:
  • Blessed with Suck: Futaba owes a good deal of her book-smarts to her Photographic Memory, but it also made her stand out in school, something her classmates bullied her mercilessly for. She did eventually manage to make a single friend, Kana, but lost her when she accidentally caught a glimpse of Kana's journal detailing the horrific abuse she was suffering at the hands of her parents, which she couldn't forget.
  • Blind Without 'Em: In Dancing in Starlight, Futaba thinks she's calling out to Morgana when she loses her glasses, but it's really a vacuum cleaner.
  • Boobs-and-Butt Pose: Surprisingly, given there are far more overt Ms. Fanservice contenders in the group, it's Futaba who gets this pose in her official Metaverse artwork.
  • Born Lucky:
    • While she doesn't fight, her highest stat is her Luck, which massively dwarfs everyone else's in the party. She even lampshades it in her Confidant.
      Futaba: [smugly] Hrmhrmhrm. It seems like help always comes my way when I need it most. I think my luck stat's really high.
      Joker: I think you're right.
      Futaba: Heck, yeah! I could prolly roll a natural twenty right now if you asked me to!
    • In Royal, if you decide to spend a non-romantic Christmas with her and Sojironote , she pulls a lucky draw at the convenience store for gift certificates that let her buy a turkey and a cake for dinner. Sojiro even lampshades the absurdity of a storybook Christmas like this. That said, it's implied that this is due to Maruki's influence, since it only happens on the route to Royal's extended ending.
      Sojiro: What kind of luck is that?
    • In Strikers, Futaba is the only member who isn't caught by the Monarch of Kyoto as she tripped earlier. This coincidence allows her to retreat and to come up with a plan to rescue the others before they are to be turned into Konoe's minions.
  • Break the Cutie: Happened before the events of the game: after being blamed for her mother's death, Futaba developed survivor's guilt, became extremely reclusive and contemplated suicide. The Thieves break her out of this.
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: She's a masterful programmer and created a mobile game that hit the top of the mobage charts on a whim. But she felt it would be a pain to go through all the paperwork for it, so she gave the rights away. Ryuji calls her an idiot for passing up all the money she could have made.note  She's remarkably blaise about this when this is pointed out to her, merely stating that she'll just have to make another one.
  • Broken Bird: When you first meet her, she's a lonely, suicidal mess who has hallucinations of her dead mother telling her she should never have been born.
  • Brutal Honesty: A consequence of her lack of social skills that results in such incidents as her calling Ryuji charmless, Mishima an NPC, and Yusuke uncultured.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Futaba might be certifiably odd, but she's as close to being a genius as they come, and her cracking skills are unmatched, creating an international hacktivist organization as a hobby and then (years later) destroying it in a single afternoon of keyboard tapping, and even hacking into all of Japan's airwaves to broadcast Shido's Calling Card.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: If you take Futuba to Nakano to hang out, she says both Ryuji's "For real?!" and Sojiro's "Let me explain," the latter even having a voice clip matching his authoritative tone.
  • Call-Back: Between her various disorders, her Persona being based on the Tome of Eldritch Lore, and her Ambiguously Bi tendencies, she'd be right at home in Persona 2.
  • Calling Parents by Their Name: She refers to her adoptive father Sojiro by his first name with no honorifics, which is very odd in Japanese culture. The one time she subverts this is when she says she's "living with [her] dad" to a social worker with Sojiro in earshot, which nearly drives Sojiro to Tender Tears. It may partially be justified by the fact that Sojiro was apparently a family friend for years before adopting her so not referring to him with parental terms might be something Futaba has difficulty getting used to or just doing it by reflex.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: Her relationship with Sojiro might be a bit distant, but she loses her temper and yells at him when he suggests that someone else might be able to take better care of her. Once she calms down, she feels awful about it, and they apologize to each other.
  • Cartoon Bomb: Introduced in Royal, her version of an All-Out Attack has her drop a huge bomb from her Persona.
  • Character Catchphrase:
  • Character Exaggeration: Strikers emphasizes her eccentricities for comedic value to a greater degree than the main game.
  • Characterizing Sitting Pose: She often sits with both feet in the seat as a sign of her social awkwardness, though she can sit normally as well.
  • Clothing Damage: Downplayed in Royal, where due to being directly next to the Cartoon Bomb she deploys in her All-Out Attack when it explodes, it only cracks her glasses. Not that it sticks afterwards.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Despite her online presence, she has no idea how to relate to average people her own age, and tends to apply gaming and tech terminology to real-life situations as a coping mechanism (though this also ties into her ambiguous disorder - people on the autistic spectrum often use pop-culture references as pre-assembled 'scripts' to make communication easier and less intellectually taxing). She also has some strange physical quirks, most noticeably her habit of squatting with her knees to her chest instead of sitting normally.
  • Commonality Connection: In Tactica, she quickly sympathizes with Toshiro Kasukabe once the second Kingdom reveals he also lost his mother and falsely blamed himself for her death for years, and fears she secretly hated him before being assured by a cognitive copy that this wasn't true. This leads to her giving him the Get A Hold Of Yourself Man treatment in the third Kingdom, a job usually reserved for Ryuji or Makoto.
  • The Cracker:
    • Not only does she manage to take down a corporate executive impersonating her hacker group Medjed, but she manages to crack into more-or-less every television broadcast in Japan to send a calling card from the Phantom Thieves to Masayoshi Shido, just to make absolutely sure he knows they're coming.
    • In Strikers she's awed by the sheer sophistication behind a true AI like Sophia and is eager to see her source code before Makoto puts everyone back on track.
  • Contrasting Replacement Character: To Rise Kujikawa, the navigator from Persona 4. Rise is an Idol Singer, which naturally means that she is very sociable and comfortable around lots of people. Futaba, on the other hand, is geeky and introverted, to the point where she's introduced as a Hikikomori, and while she's able to overcome her extreme agoraphobia, she still remains somewhat socially awkward and uncomfortable with unfamiliar or large groups of people.
  • Crack is Cheaper: Her Featherman figurines cost a grand total of 200,000 yen, or roughly $2,000, combined. That's not even taking into account her high-end PC and her extensive manga and video game collection. She sheepishly admits that it's all coming out of Sojiro's pocket, but she promises to make it up to him someday. Given how easily she created a top-selling mobile game, it shouldn't take her long if she can work up the drive to do it.
  • Cute and Psycho: She's one of the cutest members of the Phantom Thieves, but the look on her face when she's summoning her Persona can be terrifying.
  • Cyber Green: Her outfit as Oracle is a black-and-bright-green body suit, and her first persona, Necronomicon, is decorated in the same colors. This is to reflect her status as a hacker, using a throwback to the earliest days of computers.
  • Deadpan Snarker: As part of her No Social Skills personality, she's the snarkiest of the group and doesn't hesitate to talk back, particularly when dealing with Ryuji or Yusuke.
  • Death from Above: In Royal, during her All-Out Attack ending. She drops a bomb from her Persona, but it doesn't blow up. Futaba knocks on the bomb a few times, and then it explodes, launching Futaba at the screen while destroying the enemies.
  • Delayed Explosion: Her All-Out Attack in Royal involves Futaba dropping a bomb from inside her hovercraft Persona, but it doesn't immediately go off, prompting Futaba to drop to the ground, crawl over to the bomb, and lightly tap it, causing it to explode.
  • Disappeared Dad: By Wakaba's choice, as she never told anybody who Futaba's biological father was or why she decided to raise their daughter without him. Not even Sojiro knows; when asked about Futaba's father, all Sojiro can say is "there wasn't a father."
  • Ditzy Genius: Futaba is exceptionally intelligent, gifted with a Photographic Memory, and has absolutely No Social Skills. She's totally lacking in tact and tries to avoid embarrassment at a beach by tightly wrapping a towel around her face. By the time of Strikers, she's returned to school and is easily acing all of her courses despite not attending class in years.
  • Driven to Suicide: Her survivor's guilt over her mother's death is so intense that it gives birth to a fully-formed Palace structured around Futaba's suicidal ideation. She only gets better because she asks the Phantom Thieves to steal her heart and change her cognition so that she can move past it.
  • Dub Name Change: The localization changed her codename from Navi to Oracle.
  • Emerald Power: Not only is her Phantom Thief costume covered in glowing green Tron Lines, but her initial Persona Necronomicon is a flying saucer covered in glowing green runes and hieroglyphs.
  • Endearingly Dorky: To no one's surprise, Futaba effortlessly plays into this. When she's not arguing with Yusuke, boasting about her abilities or confronting her mother's killer, she's downright wholesome, having a somewhat pure view on daily life after joining up with the Phantom Thieves. She turns into a blushing, stuttering mess whenever you flirt with her while pursuing her as a romance option. Her Max Rank is halfway taken up by her desperate attempts to communicate coherently after inviting Joker up to her room for the evening (and fully aware of what that implies). And then there's the Valentine's Day date where she tries to charm Joker with an incredibly un-sexy "sexy gaze."
  • Everyone's Baby Sister: The Thieves really take care of their youngest member. Once she recovers from her Palace ordeal, they all devote several days to spending time with her to help her get comfortable around them and overcome her social anxiety, culminating in a successful trip to a crowded beach. Makoto even comments that being around Futaba reminds her of how she once wanted a younger sister. Then there's also her relationship with Joker, who - depending on player choices - basically acts as her surrogate brother.
  • Evil Laugh: When feeling particularly mischievous, she'll chuckle a signature "Mwehehe!"
  • Expy: Seemingly one to Barbara Gordon. She's the bespectacled redheaded daughter of the hero's older authority figure and ally, and a talented hacker who goes by the codename "Oracle."
  • Failed a Spot Check: When she's working at her computer, the rest of the world may as well not exist to her. Joker takes out her mountains of trash bags and gives her room a good scrubbing while she takes care of Medjed. Futaba never notices a thing until she's finished working.
  • Family Theme Naming: She and her Missing Mom Wakaba both have the kanji for "leaf" (葉) in their names.
  • First-Name Basis: She calls Sojiro by his first name without honorifics, which is hardly proper.note  This is even considering that he's only her adoptive father, though her finally calling him "Dad" moves him to Tears of Joy. Most people who know Futaba call her by her first name, too, with the occasional "-chan" tacked on, and Kasumi is the only one who calls her "Sakura-san".
  • Flying Saucer: Her initial Persona, Necronomicon, takes the shape of a traditional Saucer-type UFO with a gargoyle on top. Meanwhile, her third Persona, Al Azif, takes the form of a modern-looking Black Triangle-type UFO.
  • Fun T-Shirt: Several of them, in fact. Her casual winter outfit includes an off-the-shoulder white top with five asterisks (as in a password prompt), and her summer tank top has a Tetris screen printed on it. A black T-shirt reading "JLMK!", an acronym for "Just Let Me Know!", is also a part of her loungewear.
  • The Gadfly: Her sense of humor is ever-present, and can best be described as "mocking."
  • Gamer Chick: She's an avid gamer, frequently throwing around video game terminology in her speech. She refers to the activities on her promise lists as "quests", considers Joker her "key item", and even calls Mishima an NPC right to his face. Her All-Out Attack in Royal also has "git gud" as its caption, a reference to a meme from Dark Souls.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • While Futaba does have her own slate of costumes that can be swapped out like everyone else, she still primarily wears her Phantom Thief attire when actively assisting the party even though costume changes affect everyone else.
    • Her abilities can activate in Royal's final palace even before she joins the infiltration.
  • Geek Physiques: Takemi notes that Futaba's growth is stunted — she's less than five feet tall — and has low muscle tone for her age, given that she'd barely left her house for two years by the time the Phantom Thieves find her. Futaba doesn't get much better once she becomes more social, since she still prefers low-intensity activities:
    • In the original game, after the Palace of her arc is cleared, Futaba falls into a deep sleep and doesn't wake up for a long time. Sojiro notes that such a thing isn't uncommon for Futaba, and her weak constitution means that she can spend days where she's mostly asleep.
    • When she tries on the swimsuit that Ann and Makoto buy for her, Ann notes that she has bad posture and gives her advice on how to improve it.
    • She also notes she's been fairly short for a while if taken to the Jazz Club in Royal, where she comments she used to see height restrictions on amusement park rides as a challenge for when she was older, but eventually just stopped getting taller.
    • She makes remarks about her poor athletic ability and coordination in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, quickly getting winded after only a few minutes of dance practice.
    • This actually helps her in Strikers; during the Kyoto Jail, she narrowly avoids getting trapped with the rest of the Phantom Thieves by Shadow Akane because she isn't as physically fit as her teammates. She's far enough behind the rest of them that when the trap gets sprung, she's outside it.
  • Glad He's On Our Side: How the other Thieves feel in regards to her hacking skills. Makoto even says this verbatim when she hacks into Joker's phone to eavesdrop on them.
  • The Glomp: She glomps Ann in Royal's intro.
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual: It's implied that she uses them to read enemy data. Since they're also her Mask, she definitely uses them to summon her Persona.
  • Growling Gut: Sometimes it never heard in the despite having dialogue about how hungry she gets, but in the spinoff, Dancing In Starlight, her stomach growls while talking to Makoto about having an appetite for food. Even Makoto herself was startled by the growl she heard.
  • Hackette: The Phantom Thieves initially assume she's male when she contacts them under the name Alibaba, and it takes some sleuthing on their part before they determine that's she's actually female. She's also the current page image.
  • Happily Adopted: Sojiro is revealed to be her adoptive father, having taken her in after her mother's death. However, it's subverted by the fact that her status as a hikikomori stops her healing from the trauma. Upon having her heart reformed, she warms up to him far more, especially at the end of his Confidant, where she calls him "Dad".
  • Hartman Hips: It's difficult to tell in her street clothes, but in her thief costume, it's easy to see that her waist and hips are very defined.
  • Hate at First Sight: A comedic example towards Yusuke, whom she gets mad at for rearranging her Featherman action figures, and ends up calling him uncultured and giving him the nickname of "Inari". They eventually become Vitriolic Best Buds.
  • Headphones Equal Isolation: Futaba is almost always seen wearing headphones, and she's a shut-in. It's implied that she wears them to drown out the auditory hallucinations she's experienced since her mother's death.
  • Heal the Cutie: The combination of having her heart stolen and the Thieves' unyielding support eventually causes Futaba to become more social and comfortable around other people.
  • Heavy Sleeper: She's pretty sedentary, so it follows that she tires out easy. Sojiro isn't even surprised when she goes comatose after her change of heart, and even jokingly compares her to a dead battery. Depending on how fast you complete her Palace, she can be asleep for almost a full month.
  • Heroic Bastard: Wakaba gave birth to Futaba out of wedlock, and chose to raise her alone. Sojiro mentions that "there wasn't a father" in Futaba's world; logically, Futaba must have a biological father, but neither Sojiro nor Futaba have any idea who this could be, and they're not concerned with finding out. In any case, Futaba is presented at all times throughout the game as deserving of sympathy, and the game doesn't dwell on her status as a bastard child much after her arc is over.
  • Heroic BSoD:
    • She tends to freeze up whenever people start yelling at her, like when Sojiro confronts her and Joker over the calling card he found in Futaba's room. Justified as during the reading of Wakaba's false will, people were yelling at her constantly about having murdered her own mother, thus becoming a Trauma Button for her.
    • Played for Laughs if Joker chooses her as his romantic option. When he tells her he would like to be her boyfriend, Futaba just stands there with a Thousand-Yard Stare for three dialogue interactions from Joker.
  • Hidden Depths: The ancient Egyptian motif of her pseudonyms and Palace are pretty easy to pass off as references to semi-obscure internet culture and an apt metaphor respectively, but the poster of hieroglyphics on her bedroom door more certainly implies that she has an interest in Egyptology for its own sake.
  • Hikikomori:
    • Her storyline centers on her withdrawal from society at large after her mother's death. She spends most of the game learning to overcome her agoraphobia with the help of the rest of the team, and her Confidant has her work on a "promise list" of tasks in order to get her more comfortable around other people so that she can go back to school.
    • Her Personae also reflect her isolationist tendencies, since they're all basically mobile "computer caves" on the inside, and let her accompany the team while still maintaining distance from the action.
  • Hollywood Hacking: She's a master of this, cracking government databases for fun and even hacking the airwaves in Japan to broadcast the Thieves' final calling card, the later which is made even more ridiculous in the anime where she stops Medjed with a click of a button. However, even she admits that she isn't omnipotent, and competent as she is, and that there's information even she can't get ahold of. In particular, hacking into Sae's laptop and Akechi's phone, required either her or an associate to get into physical contact with the devices, and in Strikers, she also notes that it would take a long time for her to decompile and interpret all of Sophia's code, and hacking EMMA in particular is out of her league to the point where she requires the help of Ichinose to pull it off, who herself was able to defeat Futaba's hacking in the Abyss Jail before she got distracted by Sophia awakening to Pandora — the personal devices of government agents and partially supernatural AI are still far beyond the realm of being easily manipulated by a teen hacker, after all.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: At 4'11" (149 cm) tall, she's nearly a foot shorter than Joker. The two of them have the same guardian while in Tokyo, and can be romantically involved.
  • Hypocrisy Nod: In Royal, during an optional Safe Zone conversation in Maruki's Palace, Futaba will comment that it's "not cool" that the Palace ruler is invading people's privacy by spying on all of reality... but given that she is a hacker and a wiretapper, she'll quickly remark that she's "gonna ignore any 'pot/kettle' comments".
  • Idiot Hair: Has a single strand of hair that's always a bit out of place, but she is definitely not an idiot.
  • I Have Many Names: Futaba Sakura, Futaba Isshiki, Alibaba, Medjed, Oracle/Navi (depending on the dub).
  • Inelegant Blubbering: Played for Drama. When Sojiro confronts her over the calling card for the Phantom Thieves that he found in her room, her anxiety kicks in, and she starts crying so hard she can hardly form a coherent sentence. Lucky for her, Sojiro backs off a bit when he sees how upset she is, even in his Anger Born of Worry.
  • Innocently Insensitive:
    • Futaba isn't mean-spirited, but she can be rather tactless at times. She calls Yuuki Mishima an "overwhelmingly forgettable guy" right to his face moments after they're introduced, even likening him to an NPC in a video game, much to his chagrin.
    • She also hacks into the public record to collect evidence of her abusive uncle's various debts after he tries to extort money from Sojiro. Sojiro rips into her for doing something illegal, but she doesn't understand why he's so upset about it at first.
  • Intelligence Equals Isolation: While Futaba was still in school, she had excellent grades but no friends except for Kana. Her photographic memory caused them to view her as a freak, which made her insecure about her intelligence and try not to stand out.
  • Interface Screw: Her support skills make the screen go black and white with static before cutting to her putting them into effect.
  • I Owe You My Life: Considering that the Thieves basically stopped her from committing suicide, Futaba is incredibly grateful to them, which she explicitly admits to Joker at the end of her Confidant, romantic or otherwise, and she repeats the same thing when saying goodbye to him on his last day in Tokyo. And when Sojiro confronts her about the Phantom Thieves calling card he found in her room, Futaba passionately defends the Phantom Thieves, saying they saved her life.
  • Irony: Despite calling Mishima an NPC, Futaba is the only member of the Phantom Thieves who isn't playable in-game.
  • It Only Works Once: In Royal, Futaba can block an attack that would have KO'd one or more party members with Final Guard once per fight. Given how valuable this utility is, it's best to keep yourself healthy enough to survive most dangerous attacks so you'll have this when you absolutely need it during tough fights.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's never really an outright jerk per se, but she initially comes across as being rather cold and distrustful due to her Dark and Troubled Past; as Alibaba, she communicates in a very shady and threatening manner. Once she comes out of her shell, she proves herself to be very supportive and kind. Despite her lack of social graces, she's the first to express remorse for the group's treatment of Ryuji after Shido's Palace in a Thieves Den conversation.
  • Kubrick Stare: During her Valentine's Day date, she tries to give Joker an alluring look up through her eyelashes, but her awkwardness means it comes across more like a creepy stare instead.
  • Lame Pun Reaction: When the statues in Shido's palace cause the rest of the party to turn into mice, Yusuke constantly makes puns around this, to Futaba's annoyance.
    Yusuke: This is prepawsterous... Or something like that.
    Futaba: Ugh, go to hell, Inari.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Tying in neatly with her habit of using gaming lingo, Futaba makes various comments that liken her life to a video game.
    • One point in Futaba's Confidant has her muse that her Luck stat is really high. Based on the in-game stat menu, she's not wrong.
    • She deduces that Mishima is an NPC based on his bland looks and behavior.
    • In Royal, the phrase "Git gud!" appears on her All-Out Attack screen, a reference to Dark Souls.
    • At the romantic final rank of her Confidant, she cheers over finishing her promise list like she just attained 100% Completion for Playstation achievements.
      "Th-Then... I finished the Promise List? I got the platinum? I did it! The trophy's gonna pop up in the upper right of my room here, right?"
    • In Strikers, the Phantom Thieves discover small distortions that link to each other and the exit of a Jail. Futaba instantly dubs them Checkpoints for their functionality.
  • Like Brother and Sister: Lampshaded by Ryuji in the anime. Assuming that the player doesn't pursue a Relationship Upgrade with her, this basically sums up her relationship with Joker. She spends quite a lot of time in his room at Leblanc playing video games and the like, and Sojiro ends up becoming a parental figure for both of them. All three of them celebrate Christmas Eve together if Joker is single, and the Sakuras are the last two people he talks to the day before he leaves. Royal even gives Joker the option of introducing her to Iwai by saying she's "basically my sister." In Strikers, one dialogue option presented when bringing Futaba to the ferris wheel in Sapporo is to refer it as a "family trip", which she playfully ribs him for.
  • Little Miss Snarker: The youngest and smallest Phantom Thief, and the snarkiest with only Morgana as competition.
  • Mad Libs Catch Phrase: She likes to say she'll "make like a (x) and get out of here," whenever she's leaving a place, which makes sense since she's a Back to the Ninja superfan.
  • Meaningful Name: She shares a name with Futaba Channel / 2chan.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Unlike the other party members, Futaba cannot be directly controlled in battle, instead providing Status Buffs for the active members at random intervals. In Royal, to compensate for the fact she can't learn attacking skills, taking her to Jazz Jin on Sundays grants her unique skills that let her sporadically debuff enemies and increases the rate she gives buffs to the active party.
  • Mixed Metaphor: On occasion:
    Ann: You know, lately it's felt like someone's been staring at me in class.
    Futaba: They say the walls have eyes. And as long as they watch you, you'll never boil! Wait...
  • Mythology Gag: This is the second time a character has had Prometheus for an Ultimate Persona, and Futaba even fills the same role for her team as a hacker that Baofu did for his as a wire-tapper. They've even got similar backstories with both having lost a loved one to the machinations of the main villain.
  • The Navigator: Her Japanese code name is Navi, after all. She also learns a Confidant skill that has a chance to automatically map out a whole floor of Mementos.
  • Nerd Glasses: She has large, circular glasses that go up to her forehead.
  • The Nicknamer: She gives Yusuke the slightly nonsensical nickname of "Inari" when he irritates her. While she may be making a pun on the Japanese deity Inari (the god of foxes, among other things), inari also is the name of a tofu sushi dish. Yusuke is not amused, at any rate.
  • Non-Action Guy: She's the only Phantom Thief who never takes the battlefield in-person, preferring to hang back from the safety of her Persona while acting as the team's navigator and support specialist. Strikers often has her hack terminals, forcing the other Thieves to defend her, although she also gains HP-boosting gear to compensate.
  • Nonconformist Dyed Hair: She is a quirky hacker and hardcore gamer otaku who dyes her hair orange, even though she never leaves the house.
  • No-Sell:
    • With a maxed Confidant, there is a chance for her to block one lethal attack for the whole party.
    • Her final skill in Persona Q2 is Final Guard, which gives the party damage immunity at the cost of 5 (later 4) Party Gauges.
  • No Social Skills:
    • She was never a social butterfly, but two years of complete isolation have done a number on her already-weak interpersonal skills. In Persona Q2, she freezes up whenever she meets another team because of how many people there are.
    • In Strikers, she's stuttering should you take her aboard the ferris wheel in Sapporo. Should you tell her that it's a date, she cheers that she finally has an actual life.
  • Not in This for Your Revolution: Played straight, but later subverted. When joining the Thieves she admits that she isn't concerned with social reform or justice, she just wants to find out who killed her mother, but later on she becomes driven to help people like the Thieves helped her.
  • Only Friend: Futaba befriended a girl named Kana when the two were young, only to have the friendship fall apart when Futaba learned that Kana was being abused. They reconcile after you steal Kana's parents' hearts, and get in touch again.
  • Photographic Memory: She apparently has this. She once memorized all the titles on a bookshelf with a single glance in grade school and was able to learn intimate details from her friend Kana's diary just by catching a glimpse of the pages when Kana dropped it.
    Futaba: Once I see something... I can't forget it.
  • Playful Hacker: She uses her abilities for good, but she's still a Cute and Psycho gadfly who likes to crack government databases For the Lulz.
  • The Power of Hate: Her Shadow tells her to use this against the corrupt adults in revenge for murdering her mother and forging a suicide note which turned nearly her entire family against her and turned her into a Hikkikomori.
  • Redhead In Green: Her clothing and thief outfit consist of green coloring that goes with her hair color.
  • Redheads Are Uncool: Played with. She's a nerdy shut-in with bright orange hair; the catch is that it's actually dyed, and if it weren't, she'd almost certainly be a Brainy Brunette.
  • Red Herring: Despite being a party member, she has a Palace and she does make several very frightening blackmail threats against you a few times as "Alibaba", threatening to rat you to the authorities; if you happen to miss her palace deadline it shows that she's dead serious about it. However, she and her Shadow are obviously not antagonistic; the real Palace Ruler is actually the Cognitive Wakaba guarding over "Futaba's Tomb". The Palace deadline scene also occurs when Futaba was already reformed, making it more obvious that it's a false recollection. Not only that, but her real deadline is actually her suicidal thoughts potentially overtaking her.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: Dancing in Starlight reveals she made an in-universe Killer App for mobile phones on a whim but gave the rights away because she didn't want to deal with a contract.
  • Samus Is a Girl: When she first contacts the Phantom Thieves as Alibaba, they, in the English localization at least, refer to her using male pronouns. It's only when they learn that Futaba herself is Alibaba that they stop doing this.
  • The Scapegoat: In her backstory, she was scapegoated for her own mother's assassination. A false suicide note was forged blaming Futaba for causing maternity psychosis in Wakaba and driving her to suicide.
  • Scary Teeth: The official artwork of Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth shows Futaba sporting sharp pointy teeth.
  • Security Cling: Whenever she's approached by a stranger she cowers behind Joker. She also does this during some cutscenes, but with Makoto.
  • Sensor Character: Like Fuuka and Rise before her, Futaba's Persona allows her to locate and analyze enemies.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: The rest of the team is rather impressed by how she looks in a swimsuit... after she removes the towel wrapped around her entire face. She also gets made up very well for the team's New Year's festivities in Royal with her hair tied up.
  • Shipper on Deck:
    • A downplayed example, but prior to her mother's death, she was able to catch on to Wakaba's feelings for Sojiro, and how much he loved her in turn. Had her mother lived, she would have gladly supported the prospect of them getting together, which she mentions to Joker in her Confidant link.
    • Another downplayed example in Dancing in Starlight. During one of Makoto's social links, Futaba suggests that Makoto will make a "top-tier wife" someday, to which Makoto reacts with embarrassment. Should Joker follow up with "You'd be perfect", Futaba will fist pump enthusiastically, then point to Makoto and wink suggestively. All while Makoto blushes like crazy.
  • Shorter Means Smarter: Serves as the Navigator once she's recruited due to her hacking skills and immense brains, and only 4'11"/149cm in height.
  • Shrinking Violet: As a recovering shut-in, she's an anxious wreck, and can barely stand to even be seen when you first meet her. Joker is initially the one of the few people she's comfortable being around (even calling him her "key item", as in the important inventory item you need to advance the plot of an RPG!). Eventually, she opens up to the rest of the team as well.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!: During the battle with the Big Bad, when he asks the party whether they know what it means to defy him, Futaba says, "I don't want to understand!".
  • Signature Laugh: "Mwehehe!", which she does when particularly excited or in a teasing mood.
  • Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Futaba's had it out for Yusuke ever since he rearranged her Featherman action figures without her permission. She constantly ribs him (even in the epilogue), christens him with the Embarrassing Nickname "Inari", and is hardly amused by his attempts at humor.
  • Spanner in the Works: In Strikers, she trips in Akane's Kyoto Jail, just barely avoiding a trap which captures the rest of her teammates, and she flees straight after to Zenkichi's bar hideout. After teaming up with him to free the Phantom Thieves from being forcibly turned into Akira's minions via a Change of Heartnote , this also causes the chain of events which results in Zenkichi obtaining his own Persona.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
    • Despite Q2 already being a Spotlight-Stealing Crossover for the cast of P5, Futaba gets arguably the most out of any character in the game who isn't a protagonist or an original character. She has direct interaction with two original characters as she sees herself in them. She also gets to plays a major role in the third movie which was supposed to be A Day in the Limelight for S.E.E.S., going into the movie with the party and help them defeating the boss.
    • She is one of five characters from Persona to be playable in Star Ocean: Anamnesis. While the other characters are protagonists and Kasumi, Futaba appearing is rather unexpected since she isn't a combat character.
  • Squishy Wizard: Though it doesn't come up in the original game or Royal due to being a Support Party Member, Futaba has among the lowest HP and endurance of all the thieves. In Strikers, she'll go down fast if the thieves fail to protect her during her hacking sections, though she can equip protective gear to reduce the damage she takes.
  • Stat-O-Vision: After joining the Thieves, she's responsible for gauging the overall strength of the Shadows you're fighting, telling you whether they're small-fry or something to be cautious of. She freaks out when she notices that Caroline and Justine Broke the Rating Scale.
  • Stunned Silence: If she is chosen to be romanced, her reaction is being completely silent and motionless for a whole minute.
  • Support Party Member: After Futaba joins, she will randomly cast buffs and healing skills from the sidelines for free. She starts with party-wide attack, defense, and accuracy/evasion buffs. Leveling up her Confidant also gives her skills that restore HP or SP, give a party-wide Charge and Concentrate, or cast a party-wide Heat Riser (all stats up).
  • Tall Poppy Syndrome: When she was in elementary school, the other children called her a freak for having a Photographic Memory that could memorize the titles of every book on the shelf with a glance. They would also accuse her of cheating because she got perfect scores on all of her exams, which made her so upset that she handed in an untouched test in hopes of getting them to stop. Her bullying got so bad that she refused to go to recess, locking herself in the bathroom to cry.
  • Tank-Top Tomboy: Both her summer and winter outfits include tank tops. The summer one has a Tetris design.
  • Tarot Motifs: When the Hermit is reversed, it symbolizes isolation, loneliness, and withdrawal, and she's been treated as an outcast because of her high intelligence. Not to mention her mother died in front of her, driving her into a depression that caused her to blame herself for her mother's death. When it's upright, it symbolizes soul-searching, introspection, and a chance to change the course of your life, and her Confidant has her do all of these in one way or another.
  • Teen Genius: She is a 15-year-old programming prodigy with a Photographic Memory. She's such a skilled hacker that she can hack into just about every screen in Japan to deliver a calling card to the penultimate boss that's impossible to ignore.
  • Thousand-Yard Stare: If Joker goes for a Relationship Upgrade with her, Futaba will wordlessly stare into space for an uncomfortably long time trying to process that they're now a couple.
  • Tome of Eldritch Lore: Her initial Persona is named for the Trope Codifier, the Necronomicon, while her Third-Tier Persona is named for said Codifier's original Arabic title, Al Azif.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: If she's going to ask for food, it's going to either be sushi or Sojiro's curry. Both hold special significance for her, because they were meals she shared with her mom. She's also a fan of quick food like cup ramen for less sentimental reasons, given her homebody nature. If she ends up giving Joker obligation chocolate in Royal, she jokes about wanting a year's supply of instant noodles in return.
  • Trash of the Titans: Her room is piled to the roof with garbage bags before Joker cleans them up for her while she deals with Medjed.
  • Tron Lines: Appropriately enough, her thief outfit features a skin-tight bodysuit covered in these. In a random Mementos exchange, Haru wonders aloud about what causes the lines to glow. All three of her Personas have this trait as well.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Played for Laughs. Mementos conversations reveal that she apparently hacks into foreign military networks for fun.
  • Unknowingly in Love: She confesses to Joker that her heart always pounds when she's around him, but doesn't understand what it means. It's then Subverted when she suspects that she's in love with him. It becomes Double Subverted if Joker chooses to keep their relationship platonic; she'll dismiss her feelings as "[knowing] how much I care about my teammates". If Joker reciprocates her feelings, she will completely realize that her own feelings for him are also love.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Yusuke. She enjoys teasing him and gives him the somewhat mocking nickname of "Inari," but likes him and opens up to him relatively early on. To further hammer their relationship, the two star together in "Jagariko Interview"note  promotional videos by Atlus in collaboration with Calbee (a Japanese snack producer). One for Yusuke (also celebrating his birthday) and one for Futaba. Strikers heavily focuses on their relationship, and shows a more tender side to it, as Futaba still teases him constantly but spends a great deal encouraging him as well, especially during the 2nd arc.
  • Vocal Dissonance: Since all Personas share their user's voice actor, Necronomicon (a creepy UFO covered in glowing runes, with a gargoyle on top and tentacles coming from the underside) speaks with a young girl's voice, even higher-pitched than Futaba's normal tone.
  • Where's the Kaboom?: For her All-Out Attack in Royal, she drops a bomb from her ship onto the enemies, but it doesn't go off when it lands. Futaba knocks on it a few times, and then it explodes.
  • The Worf Effect: In a sense. In Strikers, she's awed by the sophistication of Sophia's programming, explaining that even she would need months to understand how Sophia works. Given that Futaba is a Teen Genius with a Photographic Memory who cracks military databases for fun, it speaks volumes about Sophia and her creator.
  • You Killed My Mother: Admits that she only wants to join the Phantom Thieves to avenge her mother's murder, not to change hearts. When she finally gets to face the person responsible, she lets them have it.
  • You're Not My Father: After her Shadow makes her realise that her mother's suicide note which made her think Wakaba hated her was faked, she immediately renounces the furious cognition version of her the note created and helps the Phantom Thieves kill it.

    Haru Okumura 

Haru Okumura / Noir

Arcana: III. L'Imperatrice (The Empress)

Persona: Milady (Initial) → Astarte (Ultimate) → Lucy (Third-Tier, Royal only)

Weapons: Battleaxes and grenade launchers

Arcana Bonus: Horticulture of vegetables which restore SP (original and Royal) or cast Charge or Concentrate (Royal only).

Exclusive Skill (Royal): Life Wall - Erect a shield on all party members that repels 1 (non-Almighty) attack.

Voiced by: Haruka Tomatsu (JP), Xanthe Huynh (EN)

Stage actors: Riko Sugahara (The Stage)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/haru.png
"How's this? Painful?"
Click here to see Noir
Click here to see Milady
Click here to see Astarte
Click here to see Lucy
The Fair Lady of the Phantom Thieves

Adieu.

Milady: "I see you finally made up your mind, my dear, fated princess. Freedom for you must stem from betrayal. If you yearn for it now... then you must not err. Now tell me... who shall you betray?"
Haru: "My heart has been set... You should know."
Milady: "Yes, that gaze...! I can finally display my true strength. I am thou, thou art I... Let us adorn your departure into freedom with a beautiful betrayal."

A third-year student at Shujin Academy and daughter of the president of a large food manufacturer. She is refined and good at communicating with others, but naive to the ways of the world.

Haru's stats are balanced similar to Makoto, albeit with an edge in Strength instead. She learns Psi skills, defensive skills like Tetrakarn and Makarakarn, and is the only one (aside from Joker) that can learn Gun skills. Her Persona is the Empress Arcana's Milady, as in Milady de Winter, a spy and thief in Alexandre Dumas' famous 1844 novel The Three Musketeers. As a Persona, Milady takes an appearance of a living ball gown with a fan and a handheld domino mask for a face. Her dress also hides a multitude of firearms beneath it.

Her Ultimate Persona is Astarte, also known in Abrahamic lore as Ashtoreth and a counterpart to Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war. In Sumerian mythology, Astarte is known for stealing from Enki, god of wisdom. Astarte was later demonized in Judeo-Christian traditions into Astaroth, one of the three dukes of Hell. Astarte manifests as a female figure on top of a huge, pink, floral-patterned, three-faced skull in constant rotation.

Her new third-tier ultimate Persona in Royal is Lucy, a representation of Countess Lucy Hay, the 17th century English courtier who is believed to be the real life basis of Milady de Winter. Lucy trades out her Pimped-Out Dress for an elegant designer coat, a scarf for a head with a pair of Cool Shades as her mask.

Haru's Confidant provides one of the few places where the player can easily obtain SP-healing items (vegetables in this case); she shares her services with Sojiro Sakura, who provides coffee and curry instead. Her Confidant is also the very last one the player can open, and since it involves gardening, max-level proficiency is required early on. Interacting with Haru involves the player watching her cope with the aftermath of her father's death and getting tangled with the inner workings of Okumura Foods; since Kunikazu had only intended to use her as an entryway into politics via an Arranged Marriage, Haru is completely ill-equipped to run his company. Like the other girls, she can be romanced near the end, although dialogue in and out of her link implies that she had a crush on Joker to begin with.
  • Aborted Declaration of Love: Even if Joker doesn't romantically pursue her, Haru falls for him anyway. If he rejects her romantic advances late in her Confidant, she briefly goes cold before scaling it back.
  • Adaptational Heroism: Not Haru herself, obviously, but her Persona. Milady is presented as an honorable Trickster alongside the other Phantoms' Personas, and she has a book in the game that stars her as a hero. Anyone who's read The Three Musketeers knows that if anyone there can be called a hero, it sure isn't the utterly vile, full-blown sociopath Milady de Winter.
  • Affectionate Nickname:
    • She calls Makoto "Mako-chan", because Makoto is the first friend her own age she's ever had - Makoto's a bit surprised but thinks it's a nice touch, especially after Haru had been excessively formal early in the conversation. She also calls Morgana "Mona-chan" both in and out of the Palace and uses affectionate honorifics for her fellow Thieves - -kun for boys and -chan for girls - along with their first names.
    • In Strikers, she calls Mariko Hyodo, an old friend of her family, "Mari-san."
  • All-Loving Hero: She's in the running for nicest character in the entire game. After her father dies, she takes days off from school and the team but still sends messages to check up on them, even though she's the one being put through the wringer. Later she admits she briefly doubted the Thieves, completely understandably, but actually apologizes for it. She even shows compassion for the Traitor, after The Reveal, saying that while she can't forgive them, she does understand them.
  • Archnemesis Dad: Okumura becomes this to Haru when she fully wisens up to how far he has fallen from his past self. That said, his horrible death on public television, combined with that he most likely treated Haru as if she were a daughter instead of a bargaining chip in the past, Haru reacts to with a great deal of grief, especially after he just had his heart reformed.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: In the anime, she asks the Phantom Thieves this, just before refusing to join them.
    Haru: Will you change Father's heart? For the sake of justice, or to become more famous?
    Ryuji: O-Of course it's for the sake of justice!
    Haru: But you can't help Mona-chan, can you?
  • Arranged Marriage: Being stuck with a fiancé she isn't particularly fond of is one of the reasons why she feels trapped by her father. She gains the resolve to get out of it once you reach a certain point in her Confidant.
  • Ascended Fangirl: She was formerly a fan of the Phantom Thieves until she was able to become one of them through Morgana.
  • The Atoner: Though she admits that it may be a bit self-serving, her involvement with the Phantom Thieves of Hearts is to atone for her father's actions. The actual reason is so that she doesn't have to get married to a Jerkass for the sake of her father's political ambitions. But later on, she's more classically an Atoner who is, among other things, trying to make sure her father's death had some meaning.
  • Attack Reflector: She is the only party member who can naturally learn the skills Tetrakarn and Makarakarn, which respectively reflect physical and magical attacks once. Her third-tier skill casts both on the whole party at the same time.
  • Ax-Crazy: Slightly. Especially since she has no qualms with murdering Shadows, or injuring Joker if she gets harem'd. She even makes a remark in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight about using her axe against Ryuji.
    Haru: Why is it that I get a shiver of excitement whenever the Shadows plead for their lives?!
  • Badass Adorable: She's a cute young lady who also wields the largest and heaviest weapons out of the crew, and has some pretty adorable mannerisms when in battle.
  • Badass in Distress: She and Makoto get taken as prisoners of war by Kamoshidaman at the beginning of Persona Q2.
  • Bad "Bad Acting": She tries to act appropriately adversarial to the Phantom Thieves during her brief stint as Morgana's sidekick while the latter is having a falling out with them. She flubs her lines, has trouble remembering her own code name, and fails to intimidate anyone.
  • Bait-and-Switch Character Intro: The team's initial meeting with Haru has an ominous air to it. She appears before them standing up high in her thief suit, saying nothing and wearing a black mask. The Phantom Thieves initially wonder if she's the mysterious "Black Mask" abusing the Metaverse, but as soon as she starts interacting with the party no one believes her to be that threat.
  • Balance Buff: Haru is arguably the biggest benefactor from some of the gameplay tweaks from 5 to Royal. Status Ailments receive increase viability thanks to the overhaul of the Technical Damage mechanic. By maxing out Technical Damage ranks through billiards, the player is able to guarantee a knockdown on shadows inflicted with mental-type ailments like Confusion or Fear as long as they are hit with a psychic attack. With Haru being the primary psychic user of the party, this makes her especially useful against shadows that otherwise have no weaknesses.
  • Ballet: Haru's main dance style in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, where it is revealed in her Social Events that she used to take lessons as a kid and was quite enthusiastic about them for at least a few years. Later on, however, she realized that all the praise her father gave her over her improvements at dancing was because he liked to use her as a conversation piece in high society gatherings.
  • Barbaric Battleaxe: Double Subverted. She is normally a perfectly placid and kind-hearted Nice Girl... but as the Phantom Thief Noir, she shows almost casual brutality and sadism to enemy Shadows, fighting with a giant axe and even admitting at one point she enjoys hearing them plead for their lives. A general consensus among the rest of the Phantom Thieves is that while Haru is very much genuine about being kind, she is rather unhinged and isn't above copious amounts of violence if the situation calls for it, such as the main character cheating on her:
    Haru: Take my chocolate, please... before I crush it.
  • Battle Cry: "Rush them, Milady!"/"Descend, Astarte!"/"Mystify them, Lucy!"
  • Benevolent Boss: In Strikers, while she isn't officially the boss of Okumura Foods yet, she makes it a point to check in on every Big Bang Burger joint located in each locale the Phantom Thieves visit to ensure that the employees there are happy and well.
  • Beware the Nice Ones:
    • In a more comedic sense, she has one of the more aggressive reactions should you cheat on her on Valentine's Day. Her face and voice remain composed and cheerful, but you can tell she's barely holding it together.
      Haru: Take my chocolate, please... before I crush it.
    • In one Mementos exchange, happy little Haru chirps that she gets shivers whenever she hears Shadows plead for their lives. Judging by her cheerful tone, she's not talking about shivers of dread, either... Lampshaded here in proper Hiimdaisy style.
    • There's another Mementos exchange that shows her Blood Knight side.
      Haru: Cutting down enemies as they approach... Ah, what a thrill!
      Makoto: Noir, I'd appreciate it if you held off on the homicidal remarks until after you put your weapon down.
    • In one conversation Ann talks about her whip, and Haru mentions that she wouldn't mind using one herself...
    • One battle quote has her say, "You shouldn't annoy a girl with an axe!"
    • In Strikers, she's extremely blunt about her hatred for the police (even moreso than the other thieves, who don't have the highest opinion of law enforcement to begin with) and takes a while to warm up to Zenkichi because of his association with them. Considering what the police did to Joker, her hatred is justified.
  • BFG: She holds the largest firearm in the game, being a grenade launcher, which can hit every enemy at once. Haru also learns both the Gun Boost and Gun Amp skills natively, allowing her to push the grenade launcher's damage to ludicrous levels. The weapons Milady also packs under her skirt are nothing but these, being two miniguns, two cannons, and a missile.
  • The Big Girl: She carries very heavy weapons compared to the other girls and her Strength is only slightly lower than Kasumi's.
  • Blade Lock: Milady makes her debut by saving Haru from being crushed by Okumura's roboticized cognition of her fiance by blocking him with her fan.
  • Blood Knight: She seems to enjoy fighting Shadows and finds it a great stress reliever. She even freaks out Makoto in one Mementos exchange.
  • Bond One-Liner: "Adieu."
  • Bottomless Magazines: Can do this in Strikers after unlocking the master art that prevents her heavy attack from consuming ammo, similarly to Joker.
  • Break the Cutie: Her father's death hits her pretty hard, especially since it occurred due to their attempt to reform him.
  • Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: She's a Girly Bruiser who loves violence and wields an axe as her melee weapon.
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: In Strikers, Futaba is in jealous awe of how busty Haru is when they bathe together in the hot springs.
  • Call to Agriculture:
    • Considering her status, it's a bit surprising to see her primary pastime at school is taking care of plants. However, prior to meeting the Thieves, she wasn't exactly the best with interacting with other people, so a solitary activity like plant care is rather fitting.
    • At the end of her Confidant, she declares this to be her dream rather than fully devoting her time to Okumura Foods. Her plans are to grow her own coffee beans and vegetables to use in a cafe she will run someday.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: In her romance path, she can't directly admit her attraction to Joker, relying on him to make the first move after the new CEO of Okumura Foods brings it up. Even after they get in the relationship she gets easily flustered should Joker mention her feelings.
  • Caring Gardener: Paired with some serious Artistic License – Biology (or perhaps even a subtle case of Green Thumb), as Haru can grow and harvest vegetables (such as tomatoes) from seedlings (normally a three-to-four-month endeavor in the best of conditions) inside of a week. On a Tokyo rooftop. Between November and January. Justified since she mentions that the seeds she used are a special prototype manufactured by Okumura Foods, which might explain its ability to grow despite the incompatible climate in addition to its restorative properties.
  • Character Select Forcing: Fittingly, Haru is practically required to both get through Okumura's Palace and actually beat Shadow Okumura himself: the Corporobos resist all but a select few elements, but Haru both excels in Psychic damage (which the most powerful green variants are weak to) and learns a move with a chance of confusing the entire enemy team (Corporobos are vulnerable to most status effects), meaning she can still do heavy Technical damage even if they resist her attacks. She's also the only team member besides Joker himself to learn additional Gun skills at that point in the game, which none of Okumura's Corporobos resist.
  • Charged Attack: In Strikers, her unique character trait of holding down the heavy attack button has her perform extended versions of her combo finishers, like repeatedly spinning around with her axe or creating a Psy-based tornado.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Can be spotted getting into a limousine during the fireworks festival and during the school trip to Hawaii quite some time before her formal introduction to the team. Royal takes this even further, giving her a cameo on the 3rd floor near the start of the Kamoshida arc, as well as at the class cleanup event on May 30th.
  • Child Marriage Veto: Goes through with this during her Confidant with Joker.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Downplayed. Milady likes the idea of betrayal but means no harm to the party.
  • Classy Cravat: Her thief costume comes with a fancy cravat.
  • Commonality Connection: Part of the reason why she's fairly close to Makoto (aside from both being 3rd year Senpais to the rest of the Thieves) is that both of them want to change the hearts of loved ones (Makoto's elder sister Sae and Haru's father Kunizaku) who have been consumed by their obsessions.
  • Critical Hit Class:
    • Haru excels in Technical damage, as her Psy and Gun skills allow her to get easy Technical damage off a variety of mental status effects. It's even more prominent in Royal, as the overhauled Technical system allows her to get a terrifying amount of damage off.
    • Haru also learns the One-shot Kill Gun skill, which has a high critical rate on its own. This makes her an excellent partner to Yoshizawa, who learns the crit-boosting skill Brave Step and also focuses on criticals.
  • Cute and Psycho: A low-key example, but the signs are there:
    • It's pretty clear that sweet little Haru has quite the thing with using violence as a means of helping her feel better. Then there's the fact that she happens to love watching slasher movies...
      Haru: Why is it that I get a shiver of excitement whenever Shadows plead for their lives?
    • In Strikers, she joins in on the girls' thinly veiled threats if the boys spy on them while they're sleeping.
  • The Cutie: Outside of her operations as a Phantom Thief, she's a sweet and cordial little thing. Even more so than Futaba, as Futaba is significantly more of The Gadfly.
  • Death Glare: While not quite on the level of Makoto's, she sports a pretty decent one in her critical cut-in that contrasts a great deal with her usual compassion.
  • Delayed Causality: She's able to perform this after using an All-Out Attack, using the pause to set up a Mid-Battle Tea Break and taking a sip of the tea just in time for the enemies to start spurting High-Pressure Blood.
  • Dem Bones: Astarte's bottom half is a huge pink flowery skull.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Haru is the source of some of the funniest moments because of how friendly she looks while saying things that don't quite match the mood of her face. Case in point, when she finds out Joker may have cheated on her during Valentine's Day:
    Haru [smiling]: Take my chocolate, please... before I crush it.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: After using her gun (which is a freaking grenade launcher!) she may randomly say "that felt good!"
  • Don't Call Me "Sir": When Ann calls Haru "senpai" at school, Haru asks Ann to call her "Haru" instead.
  • Dramatic Spotlight: One falls on her during her awakening, likely courtesy of Milady, and befitting both of their theatrical tendencies. It also has the effect of putting more pressure on Haru's answer as Milady asks her who she ultimately wants to side with.
  • Drives Like Crazy:
    • Given that the Morganamobile requires a driver, it is safe to say Haru qualifies as crazy at the wheel, given that you find the thing flipped over.
    • In Strikers, when Makoto is forced to let Haru take over driving duty, Haru turns into a speed demon. She drives from Fukuoka to Kyoto (normally an eight-hour drive) in a single morning, driving at an average of 160 km/100 mph the entire time, accidentally drove directly into Osaka on the way and is heavily implied to have nearly crashed the van at the end. When the Thieves arrive in Kyoto, all of them look like they're going to be sick, and several mention being scared for their lives. The van drawing on the calendar even flips twice on the way.
      Haru: Um... I was just driving normally... I think.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Before meeting Morgana, Haru made several earlier appearances, namely during Summer Festival and the trip to Hawaii. In Royal she appears as early as the first day of school, where she can be seen talking to a teacher after school and volunteering to take care of the planters on the roof.
  • Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: She's one of the nicest characters in the entire game, and even somewhat sympathizes with Akechi despite being the one who killed her father, whom she also loved despite his terrible treatment of her. Despite this, she can't stand her fiance Sugimura, calling him a creep, and for obvious reasons has nothing nice to say about Shido like the rest of the Thieves, calling him out for acting out of pure self-interest and arranging her father's murder.
  • The Face: Befitting her status as the Ojou, she has good communication skills.
  • Fiction 500: Haru mentions that Okumura Foods actually privately booked the whole of Destinyland for an event which is then retooled into her Phantom Thieves celebration. Given Ryuji's reaction to Futaba showing him how much a normal ticket costs and what privately booking a park of that scale entails,note  it pretty much shows that the company can do that and still function normally financially afterwards.
  • Fangirl: A former one to the Phantom Thieves prior her ascension into their group.
  • Forehead of Doom: Her hat does a good job hiding it when she's in Phantom Thief mode, but Haru has a noticeably large egg-shaped noggin, made prominent by her hairstyle, and made fun of by the fanbase. It even gets clear focus in some of her animated cut-ins.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • When Sojiro meets Haru at Leblanc on September 18th, he teasingly asks Joker what's the deal with him bringing over yet another girl note . Depending on the player's choices, Sojiro might specifically warn him to not break her heart. It turns out that he's got quite a keen eye for women: Haru is the one romanceable Confidant that takes the Just Friends route the worst and her Tranquil Fury if cheated on during the Valentine's Day Episode is pretty damn scary.
    • Among all of Joker's possible girlfriends, Haru is the only one who openly compliments his physical features (e.g. pointing out how handsome he is) very early into her Confidant, way before the chance for romance becomes available. This is but a precursor to The Reveal that she's been harboring feelings for him all this time.
    • Even her gameplay animation when Joker opens a locked chest hints at her affection for him. While all the other thieves just show general excitement at a rare treasure being found, Haru is swooning like a shoujo protagonist.
  • Fourth-Date Marriage: Her in-game Confidant description should she be romanced makes it very clear that she already dreams of Joker being her fiancé soon after they begin a relationship.
  • Full-Name Ultimatum: In Strikers, she calls Mariko Hyodo by her full name after the battle with Mariko's Shadow, before convincing her that she should start over.
  • Gatling Good: Milady has a pair of tri-barrel miniguns beneath her skirt.
  • Gender-Blender Name: Her codename "Noir" means "black" in French, but it's the male form of the adjective. A more strict translation would have her use the female "Noire" instead. Possibly a leftover and Development Gag from an early stage in the game's development when the prototype of Haru's character was still a guy. It may also be an extension of her view of rebellion, going against harmful gender roles (tying in with her traditionally male thief outfit).
  • Girl with Psycho Weapon: She wields enormous axes as her melee weapon of choice, and the high-level ones tend to be particularly brutal-looking monstrosities that seem like they should belong to a villain.
  • Girly Bruiser: She's pretty girly but slashes Shadows with axes and blows them up with grenade launchers.
  • Good Is Not Soft: Haru expresses this sentiment in Strikers, after recalling how Mariko insisted that Haru pick herself up when she fell.
    Haru: There's more to good character than kindness. Being good means dealing with the bad in front of you.
  • Graceful Ladies Like Purple: She wears a violet hat and gloves in her thief costume, and is an elegant and refined girl from a wealthy family.
  • Gratuitous French: Seems to favor using French words, with her code name being "Noir", saying "Adieu" in her All-Out Attack and her most powerful melee weapon is called "Fleurs du Mal" (Flowers of Evil).
  • Grenade Launcher: Her guns of choice. They can only fire a single shot per round, but can hit all enemies.
  • The Gunslinger: The only character other than Joker who can use Gun-based physical attacks. Despite this, she doesn't actually wield a gun, opting instead for a grenade launcher.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Her grenade launcher can hit the entire opposing team. In Strikers, her speciality is crowd control where she can mow down large groups of Shadows and can even upgrade her barrage to be infinite when triggered.
  • Heroic BSoD: She breaks down after her father's death.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: She refers to gardening as her only unique talent.
  • Hidden Buxom: Her cardigan appears to hide a great deal of her bosom, which becomes obvious when she's in her Noir outfit. In Strikers, when the girls are at a bathhouse, Ann outright tells Futaba to bother Haru instead because she's about the same size.
  • Hidden Depths: Despite her upbringing and rather "refined" personality, Haru's interests actually run counter to it. She's a big fan of horror movies, loves gardening and partakes in manual labor for it, and during her Confidant treats Joker to Black Ivory Coffee. note 
  • Horned Humanoid: Astarte has her symbol, the crescent moon horns, on her head.
  • Humble Goal: Revealed through her Confidant, Haru's ultimate ambition in life is to open a cafe that specializes in serving healthy and organic food and coffee. This is something her grandfather originally did before her father took over the family business and warped it into a fast-food chain.
  • Hypocritical Humor: As "Beauty Thief," after insulting the other Thieves on Morgana's instructions, she declares that the time for "small talk" is over, prompting Ann to point out that Haru was the one who started it.
  • I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In the Rank 9 of her Confidant, should the player says they're Just Friends, a now distraught Haru will quickly change the topic and mention that she should really start studying for her college entrance exams before excusing herself.
  • Infinity +1 Sword:
    • Her best melee weapon is Fleurs du Mal, gained by itemizing Beelzebub. It gives her +5 Magic and a high chance to inflict dizziness.
    • Her best ranged weapon is Yagrush, gained by itemizing Baal. It gives her a medium chance to inflict shock.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: She was rather close with Mariko Hyodo (a woman old enough to be Haru's mother) when she was young, and is deeply affected by realizing how much Mariko has changed.
  • Irony: Haru's father likes to remind her of his (and by extension, the family's) motto: "Overcome failure at all costs, even if it means betraying others." Haru lives up to it nicely, betraying her own father for the good of both of them.
    Milady: Let us adorn your departure into freedom with a beautiful betrayal!
  • It Only Works Once: In Royal, the changes to the gun mechanics make it so Haru's grenade launcher only has one shot per fight. As a result, Haru has a very powerful gun that can hit the entire enemy field, trigger technical damage off of freeze or shock, and easily inflict status effects if upgraded, but she only gets one shot per battle. If she wants to use Gun attacks afterwards, she has to rely on her Gun skills, which cost HP (and the second such attack, One-Shot Kill, can only hit one enemy at a time).
  • Jack of All Stats:
    • Haru has a very diverse movepool. She specializes in Psy magic, and is the only Phantom Thief aside from Joker who can use Gun skills. She can also use reflection barriers, has the best status effect removal skill, and the best single-target buff with Heat Riser, which improves every stat. Her movepool is so diverse that no matter how you choose to specialize her, you'll have to give up some part of her kit. This is only compounded by the fact that she gets two sets of passive buff skills; one for Psy and one for Gun. This does present a downside, however; she's flexible with her skills, but the player might need to focus her more on one to two strengths over the rest, as she simply doesn't have enough room to learn everything. However, like Teddie before her, you can choose which to maximize her in. Keeping both gun boosting stats and Triple Down can lead to hysterical damage output while having Psychic magic for Technical Damage is one option even if you lose some outright damage potential. A defensive Haru is also available to the player as well. Again, like Teddie from the previous game, you'll have to decide what to optimize her as, and commit to it.
    • Strikers toys with this, as while her Persona skills haven't changed much, her combo strings are still long-ranged and hard-hitting enough to deal with mobs and bosses alike, with the only notable tradeoff being that her movement and attack speeds are slower than those of her comrades.
  • Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Her initial Persona Milady is a sentient Victorian-style ball gown concealing an entire arsenal inside of it. Haru herself doesn't exactly skimp on the clothing for her thief outfit, either.
  • Kindhearted Cat Lover: For all her Cute and Psycho tendencies, she is ultimately a kind young woman with a fondness for animals (and plants). She initially becomes involved with the plot when she sees a sad-looking cat (actually Morgana) and immediately follows it because she is worried for it, leading her into the Metaverse.
  • Lady of War: Subverted. Despite being the Ojou character of the group, her battle style is rather clumsy, and she wields axes and grenade launchers, weapons that aren't really ladylike.
  • Last Girl Wins: In vanilla, she is this if you romance her, as she's the last female Confidant that you get. Zig-Zagged in Royal, where Yoshizawa's romance is the last unlocked, but her Confidant unlocks earlier than Haru's.
  • Late Character Syndrome:
    • She's the last permanent party member introduced in the base game and even in Royal the two party members after her are more Guest Star Party Members than anything. She's not terrible, but she's also not at the same level as the likes of Makoto or Yoshizawa, nor is her niche of psy and gun skills incredibly valuable. On top of that, given that her Confidant unlocks even later, she'll also only just be starting to get her battle passives when your other party members are likely to already have all of theirs plus their ultimate Persona. As a result, she's a bit unpopular as a party member, though Royal did buff the Technical attacks she's built around as well as reworking the Okumura fight to make her much more useful.
    • In the original game, her Confidant only becomes available on 10/30, a whole Palace later than the one she is introduced in. note  Furthermore, Haru's food growing ability is useful, but comes so late into the game that its utility is quite limited. Even worse is that when Akechi joins, he gains all four of his battle abilities straight away (Baton Pass, Follow Up, Detective Talk and Harisen Recovery), meaning he is more useful than Haru is before the player even has a chance to start her Confidant.
    • Downplayed somewhat in Royal, as while her Confidant is still available on 10/30, Akechi's joining the Phantom Thieves for the sixth Palace doesn't automatically give him Harisen Recovery unless you've gotten him to Rank 7 beforehand. Afterward, Haru starts off with the basic Baton Pass when her Confidant begins due to Royal's changes, and the third-term events allow her to be played/her food growing ability to be used for a longer period of time.
    • All of this is averted entirely in Strikers, as she's available from the start along with the rest of her allies.
  • Literal Metaphor: Due to being Literal-Minded and hopeless with technology, Haru thought for a long time that "booting up" her computer meant literally kicking it.
  • Lonely Rich Kid: Pretty much had no friends prior to her interactions with the Phantom Thieves, mostly due to her father being very particular about who was influencing her.
  • Loners Are Freaks: One of the reasons Haru is considered eccentric is that she doesn't make many friends, as she finds it hard to trust others.
  • Look Behind You: When the party corners her in Mementos, she uses this ploy in order to distract them long enough to get away in the Morganamobile. Yusuke even lampshades how they fell for "the oldest trick in the book".
  • Love at First Sight: It's implied that Haru quickly fell for Joker upon meeting him in proper, judging by her heartbroken reaction when you take the friendship route with her.
  • Love Hurts: Has by far the worst reaction if you decide to take the friendship route with her. While the other Confidants are pretty ambiguous in their reactions, Haru is explicitly heartbroken, and has to leave Joker's presence quickly to avoid becoming emotional.
  • Loves the Sound of Screaming: In Mementos, some of her dialogue says that she loves hearing the Shadows suffer. The party is understandably a little unnerved.
  • Magic Knight: Haru sports above average Strength and Magic stats, making her an excellent all around attacker. If her Psi attacks hit a target with mental status effects, her damage can get particularly impressive. Meanwhile, she also learns Gun skills, like the high Crit rate One-shot Kill. This is further emphasized with her ability to learn skills that amplify both her Psychokinesis and Gun skills.
  • Meal Ticket: Haru is highly conscious of being this, especially after she becomes her father's sole beneficiary of his sudden death, effectively inheriting Okumara foods. She has no idea who in the company to trust, and who is trying to cozy up to her for their own benefit.
  • Meaningful Echo: After defeating Mariko's Shadow in Strikers, she gives the same command and advice to her fallen friend that Mariko gave Haru as a child.
    Noir: Stand up, Mariko Hyodo!
  • Meaningful Name:
    • She chooses "Noir", which means "Black" in French, because as much as she'd like to play the hero, she knows that as a Phantom Thief, she's on the "dark" side of the law. This gets lampshaded when picking out Akechi's codename when she realises that her codename was the only one that wasn't a Line-of-Sight Name.
    • Her name, Haru, means "Spring". Fitting for a gardener.
  • Mighty Glacier:
    • Q2 turns her into one; she has amazing strength, magic and endurance at the cost of lackluster speed and luck. Additionally her Axe Guard signature skill will always have a chance of nullifying a physical attack, playing into this role.
    • In Tactica, she retains her high damage output with powerful Psy attacks capable of dragging enemies out of position, a high-knockback melee attack, and a grenade launcher capable of hitting multiple targets at once, but she has the absolute worst mobility (at only 4 squares without upgrades) of the entire playable cast, meaning she can't go very far without mobility buffs. It's noted in one of the sidequests that her poor mobility is a result of constantly lugging around her heavy axe and grenade launcher.
  • Moment of Weakness: Upon hearing her father beg for forgiveness, she lowers her guard long enough for him to spring a trap on the other Thieves, save Morgana.
  • More Dakka: Milady hides an absurd amount of firepower underneath that gown. By absurd, we mean two tri-barreled miniguns, a pair of cannons, and an armed missile. Lucy is slightly toned down, with a trio of sniper rifles. She's also the only Persona in the party besides Joker's who learns Gun skills.
    Skull: [the first time Milady unveils her firepower] Geez!
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: Haru possesses a dainty figure suitable for a sheltered heiress. At the same time, she wields the loudest and heaviest weapons in the party and can effortlessly chop through a blockade of fallen trees by spinning around in Persona Q2.
  • Named After Somebody Famous:
    • Seemingly named after Haru Hiratsuka and Hiroshi Okumura, a Japanese feminist from the early 1900s and her lover. Like Haru, Hiratsuka was also from an upstanding family and rejected the ideology that women were to be obedient to their husbands.
    • Her third-tier Persona, Lucy, is named after Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, an English courtier who served as an inspiration for the character of Milady de Winter.
  • Nice Girl: Haru is easily one of the nicest characters in the entire game. Unless you're a Shadow or a cheating boyfriend. Or you've made the mistake of letting her drive.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: During Mementos conversations she mentions that she considers the Shadows to be "cute" and full of "character." Also, she is surprisingly a fan of horror films, since she goes to see one with Joker.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: All she wanted was to change her father's heart and help him become a better man. It's a shame The Conspiracy had other plans.
  • Non-Idle Rich: She's a rich Ojou who moonlights as a classy thief, fighting with supernatural powers in order to change her corrupted city.
  • Not Completely Useless: She has a passive ability that halves the time ailments affect her. Since ailments aren't encountered much and can be removed by several things, the ability is okay but overshadowed by the other abilities she develops. However, it's really useful against the base game's final boss, who repeatedly inflicts ailments on the whole party.
  • Ojou: The daughter of a food manufacturing company's president, she lives a sophisticated life.
  • Older Than They Look: While her young and petite appearance suggests that she's around 15-16 years old, she's actually one of the oldest of the Phantom Thieves, being 17 years old and turning 18 prior to the third semester.
  • Old Shame: In-Universe: Haru is embarrassed by her "Beauty Thief" nickname, and when this gets brought up in Strikers, an optional conversation has her reason that it's because she's now an adult, and therefore the name would not be fitting.note 
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: By the time of Strikers, Haru referring to herself as "The Beauty Thief" when she's first introduced becomes an in-joke with the rest of the Thieves that gets brought up several times, to Haru's embarrassment. Zenkichi is completely confused when he overhears this and when the group gives him context he flatly says "wow, she actually called herself that?"
  • Out of Focus: Of all the Phantom Thieves, Haru receives the least focus and screentime. She joins the group fairly late in the game (and doesn't get much screentime before her official introduction), her introductory arc initially puts more focus on Morgana leaving the Phantom Thieves than her own issues (to the point where she discovers her thief outfit and the Metaverse off-screen), and her confidant doesn't start until around Sae's Palace, at which point Akechi is the focus character. Strikers fixes this by giving her equal spotlight to the other thieves and another mini-arc of hers.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Her thief outfit becomes this if you know where to look. After they encounter her, the Phantom Thieves guess that she's likely a Shujin student and look through the class photos. They manage to properly identify her due to her fluffy hairstyle.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Her starter Persona Milady is a giant living ballgown... with a multitude of massive weapons hidden under the skirt with a giant red metal frame shaped like an angry face.
  • Pink Means Feminine: She dons the color pink in a fair number of her outfits, such as her winter uniform's cardigan, or her Metaverse outfit's blouse, and is a graceful young lady.
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: Not only does she utilize an axe and a grenade launcher as her weapons of choice, but she also has the third-highest Strength stat in the party (despite her meager HP pool), and the capability to out-damage Ryuji and Yusuke under specific circumstances. Not to mention that she's the second shortest girl in the party, only surpassing Futaba by a few inches.
  • Proper Tights with a Skirt: She wears white, flower-patterned tights with her winter uniform, is the daughter of a bigwig, and has a prim personality. In fact, of the five outfits she is normally seen wearing, four of them (winter uniform, both summer and winter casual outfits, and Phantom Thief outfit) all sport tights of some kind. This even extends to Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, where her dancing outfit has plain white tights.
  • Psychic Powers: Milady uses Psi type skills.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Her arcana is the Empress, she's the daughter of a food industry mogul, her chat portrait as well as her Phantom Thief costume are mostly purple, and she uses a two-handed axe and a grenade launcher as her weapon of choice.
  • Red Herring: The Phantom Thieves are quick to suspect Haru for being the black-masked killer, but they quickly dismiss her after they notice she's not only partnered with Morgana, but is quite inexperienced as well. For the audience, it's because she wears a black mask, is introduced with her Persona already, had potential connections to be part of The Conspiracy, and a motive for killing her father.
  • Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Downplayed. Haru is naive about how the world normally works so she's seen as eccentric by others.
  • Rose-Haired Sweetie: Haru's hair is colored in pink tones, and she's the kindest member in the party.
  • Sadist: Some of her Mementos dialogue suggests she has sadistic tendencies towards Shadows:
    Haru: Why is it that I get a shiver of excitement whenever the Shadows plead for their lives?
    Futaba: Ooh, ooh! What was that called? Sadies? Saddest?
  • Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Occasionally, when firing her grenade launcher, Haru will shout "Ka-boom!" in a rather adorable manner.
  • Secretly Selfish: Downplayed. She does want to help the employees of Okumura Foods, but what really set her on stealing her father's heart was to get out of her Arranged Marriage. This is why she has a formless, weak Persona until the battle with her fiance's cognitive existence, and she realizes for herself how truly callous Kunikazu has become.
  • Selective Obliviousness: Although she has been chauffeured around her whole life, she does not recognize that driving at a speed that leaves the occupants carsick is not normal.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Arguably, as the Antisocial Force wouldn't have ended her dad's life had the Phantom Thieves not intervened in the first place, although it's heavily implied that the conspiracy planned for him to have his heart stolen and frame the Thieves for his death. Her own belief that she's guilty of this nearly destroys her, until it turns out neither she or any of her friends are remotely responsible for actually pulling the trigger,
  • Sheltered Aristocrat: Due to her upbringing, she can be naive at times:
    Haru: Oh, do you know the magic ramen chant? Veggie-garlic-extra-extra…
    Ryuji: All right, who's been tellin' Noir this dumb crap?
  • Shaped Like Itself: One Mementos exchange:
    Futaba: This darkness is so... undergroundy.
    Haru: There are few things undergroundier than the underground.
  • Signature Headgear: Several, in fact: She wears a spiffy-looking cavalier hat with a large feather in it as part of her Metaverse outfit, sports some Stylish Sunhats with her bathing suit and her casual outfit in Strikers, and her winter outfit in Royal includes a classy pink beret.
  • Signature Move: In Persona 3 Reload, the Gun skill One-Shot Kill becomes Astarte's go-to unique move. As for Milady, since she doesn't have Psy skills in that game, she's give the unique passive skill Pierce Driver (strengthens pierce attacks by 75%) instead.
  • Silk Hiding Steel: Her sweet and ladylike demeanor belies a strong will and even some bloodlust. Milady mirrors this trait literally with the large array of guns hidden under her skirts.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: Ulterior motives aside, Haru is legitimately concerned about her father's misdeeds and wants to put a stop to them. When Yusuke warns her that this will gain her a bad reputation as the daughter of a criminal, Haru says that she's prepared for this, and doesn't want happiness that's derived from someone else's wrongdoing.
  • Situational Damage Attack: Her Psi skills do more damage if the enemy happens to be suffering from a mental status ailment.
  • Skeleton Motif: Astarte, her Ultimate Persona, has a flower-patterned skull for its bottom half, likely referencing her journey to the Underworld. It also likely references Haru having to confront the death of someone she dearly loved.
  • Small Girl, Big Gun: This dainty little lady wields the largest, and loudest, weapons out of the entire crew. And don't forget Milady.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: Zigzagged. Haru is a Friend to All Living Things except enemy Shadows, whose suffering she discovers she revels in.
  • Southpaw Advantage: In battle she holds her melee weapon in her left hand, and Milady also holds her fan with the left hand. However, she uses both hands to swing her axe, fires her gun right-sided, throws darts and holds the handle of her coffee/tea cup with her right hand, and has her Evoker on her right thigh while wearing the Gekkoukan uniform.
  • Spanner in the Works: A minor case since she wouldn't be able to tell anyone, but her attempts to get out of her engagement lead her to joining the Phantom Thieves, making her one of the most important people who knows about their innocence regarding her father's murder.
  • Speed Demon: She does not feel constrained by driving laws, and remains fully steady and coherent after a trip that left everyone else dizzy.
  • Spin Attack: In Strikers, Haru's final combo finisher is to spin around with her axe fully extended.
  • Spoiled Sweet: Her family is absolutely loaded, and she herself has more money than she could ever know what to do with, but she's still an absolute sweetheart of a girl who dislikes harming anyone (unless she's pushed or confronting a Shadow).
  • Status Buff: Aside from the reflective skills mentioned above, Haru is the only party member besides Joker who's capable of using the impressive buff skill Heat Riser.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Shares multiple similarities with Mitsuru Kirijo from Persona 3 as another Gratuitous French dropping Ojou representing the Empress arcana. Her father also dies during the plot, sending her into a Heroic BSoD.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: When she tells Joker how her unwanted engagement came to be, she stresses the fact that, while in a nominal relationship with her fiancé, "no 'relationship' stuff" has ever happened between them. Atypically for this trope, the "denial" part wasn't a lie at all. Instead, it's implied that Haru was "suspiciously specific" on this particular point because she was already crushing on Joker by then and really didn't want to hurt her chances with him over a misunderstanding.
  • Tarot Motifs: She obviously displays some upright aspects of the Empress, such as nurturing, nature, and abundance with her garden. But she also displays some of its reversed aspects as well, namely an inability to express oneself; case in point, Haru in the beginning is being forced into a political marriage with a womanizing sleazebag and later her late father's company being in complete disarray in the wake of his death thanks to her, both of which could have been avoided if she had confidence in expressing her true thoughts at the start. Her Confidant helps her to resolve this issue in the end.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: She made it clear that she'll never forgive Akechi for outright killing her father, but nonetheless believes his help is necessary to stop Maruki. Also, Haru stated that should Akechi turn on them again, they'll be ready to take him down.
  • There's No Kill like Overkill: Haru and Milady's offensive style seems to be based on this principle. Haru carries (of all things) an axe and a grenade launcher, while Milady has two miniguns, two cannons, and a live missile hidden beneath her dress.
  • This Is Unforgivable!:
    • She says this to the Big Bad regarding his plans and the actions that he takes to further them, including having her father killed.
    • She also bluntly states that that she will never forgive Akechi for killing her father, even if she understands why he did it. This remains true even in the third semester when Akechi returns; an optional safe room conversation has her state that she still won't forgive him and is only working with him because there's a bigger threat to deal with.
  • Throw Down the Bomblet: Uses grenade launchers in combat.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: In Strikers, she fears that she won't be able to save Mariko Hyodo and make another repeat of her father's unfortunate demise, but she succeeds at changing Mariko's heart without unforeseen repercussions, much to her relief.
  • Token Wholesome: Haru is notably exempt from any revealing or downright Stripperiffic costumes compared to the other lady Phantom Thieves. To wit: Her Phantom Thief outfit is an elegant costume with no exposed skin or tightness (though the hole in her chest piece accentuates her large breasts), her swimsuit is a dress rather than a bikini, and despite having a costume in the ultra risque High Cut line in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, it is merely a suit of armor with some back. And none of her outfits leave her stomach exposed, DLC or otherwise.
  • Took a Level in Badass: While she starts off as a Badass Adorable, there are times when the team just doesn't take her seriously due to the "Beauty Thief" incident in the original game and even continue to tease her about it a bit in Strikers. However, after the events of the Sapporo Jail with her further development and turning the Beauty Thief moniker into a Badass Boast instead of a joke, no one uses it to tease her ever again.
  • Tranquil Fury: If you cheat on her on Valentine's Day, the tone she takes with you tries to seem calm, but only barely contains the inferno within.
    Haru: Take my chocolate, please. Before I crush it.
  • Trauma-Induced Amnesia: In Strikers, Haru mentions that the trauma of her father's death caused her to subconsciously repress some of her childhood memories to cope with the loss. This in turn meant she entirely forgot about Mariko Hyodo, a prominent figure from her childhood who was never mentioned until Strikers, until they came face-to-face.
  • Unabashed B-Movie Fan: She's a fan of silly slasher movies, a hint at her violent eccentricity.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: With her choice of weaponry, she foregoes elegance and instead decides to bring big clumsy-but-powerful weapons like axes and grenade launchers.
  • Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: Lucy has four legs under her dress (as does Milady, but Lucy's are more human-like).
  • Visual Pun: The front panels of Milady's skirts are embroidered with a serene feminine face, but open to reveal a metallic Slasher Smile with jagged teeth and a mouth full of firepower. Fittingly for her namesake, she's two-faced.
  • Walking Armory: Somewhat downplayed, but while Haru herself only has the axe and launcher, Milady carries around cannons, gatling guns, and a missile.
  • Walking Spoiler: To some degree. It's a bit difficult to discuss her in full without talking about what happens to her father, and that's meant to be a major twist and the point at which the stakes really begin to ratchet up and also informs a good deal of Haru's character later in the game.
  • Walking Techbane:
    • In Dancing in Starlight she reveals that her one major weakness is machines. She mentions not knowing how to use a smartphone, she breaks new computers by touching them, and has taken her current PC in for repair at least 10 times. Futaba's reaction is, "I've only heard urban legends about people like you."
    • Her relationship with gas-powered vehicles, on the other hand, weirdly inverts the trope. The vehicle is fine, Haru is fine, but everyone else is in danger while she is behind the wheel.
  • Was It Really Worth It?: After escaping from the Phantom Thieves' second attempt to cooperate with them, she asks Morgana if he's really adamant on not going back with them. This shows that she's starting to have second thoughts about their collaboration.
    Morgana: Hmph, serves them right!
    Haru: Are you sure that's what you wanted?
    Morgana: Of course it was!
  • Weapon-Based Characterization: In spite of her distinctly feminine mannerisms, personality, and Phantom Thief costume, she uses distinctly unfeminine weapons: heavy axes and grenade launchers. This is emblematic of her rebellion against her father, who wants to mold her into the perfect little daughter to advance his agenda.
  • Wham Episode: The arc involving her father marks the real change of tone in the story.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Gives a subdued one to the Thieves when refusing to cooperate with them, saying that she doesn't trust them to look out for the weak if they didn't look out for Morgana.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Her thief outfit is an old style (à la The Three Musketeers) male outfit modified to suit a woman.
  • Why Waste a Wedding?: More like "Why Waste an Engagement?". Her Arranged Marriage is cancelled at Rank 9 of her Confidant, the same rank you can romance her at; if you do, her Confidant description at Rank 10 references a "new fiancé" who is all-but-stated to be Joker.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Along with Makoto, their Showtime Combination Attack is a shout-out to Women's Pro-Wrestling. They generate a wrestling ring, Makoto uses a running clothesline, Haru uses a dropkick, and then Makoto whacks them over the head with a steel folding chair. Afterwards, they both climb to the top rope and do a double elbow drop.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Persona 5 Yusuke Kitagawa, Persona 5 Makoto Niijima, Persona 5 Futaba Sakura, Persona 5 Haru Okumura

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Futaba's All-Out Attack

For her All-Out Attack animation, Futaba drops a giant bomb from inside of Necronomicon, but it doesn't go off. She then proceeds to drop to the ground, scuttle over to the bomb, and lightly tap it, causing it to go off.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (17 votes)

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Main / DelayedExplosion

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