#4 Futaba Sakura
Arcana - Hermit
Palace - Desert Tomb
Futaba Sakura is the introverted navigator for the Phanton Thieves after being saved from herself in Persona 5.
Futaba was a shut-in who never left her room, due to being traumatized from her mothers "suicide." She had social anxiety that had almost become a complete case of agoraphobia. Being generally introverted paired with this trauma, she never left her house and stayed in her room for years. She never attended school, and communicated with others using the internet and her hacking abilties. Her adoptive father, Sojiro Sakura, took her in after her mothers death since they were close, and only enables this activity since he feels immense guilt about her mother, Wakaba Ishiki's, death.
When she first meets the protgaonist, she only communicates via the internet in short sentences. she states that she knows their identities as the Phantom Thieves and wants them to save her. She says that if they don't save her, MedJed (their current opponent) will win and unleash their cleanse against the Phantom Thieves, crashing the PhanSite servers. When Akira pushes Sojiro for information on Futaba, he refuses at first until eventually giving in. They find out that she sees her room as her own tomb, as it's where she'll die.
With this, they find out her palace is set in the desert and the inside is a pyramid being led to her tomb (her room). Her shadow is the only one that is non-aggressive and wants to help Futaba get better. Futaba has the MetaNav app on her phone, which allows her to walk into her own palace during the fight against the Wakaba Chimera. She has to face her own mother in that state, and after defeating the boss and realizing that her mother did care about her, she sees her one last time. Wakaba tells Futaba that she loves her, and that she needs to keep going on without her before disappearing.
After being saved, Futaba goes into a coma until the day that MedJed is ready to unleash their cleanse against them. She hacks into their servers and puts an image of the Phantom Thieves logo on their website to let them know they've lost. She also states that the whole thing was an empty threat, as she was the original MedJed and knows that there are copycats who just threaten others. Futaba is grateful for what the Phantom Thieves did for her, and decides to stay with them as their navigator. Her social anxiety was still bad, but nothing that couldn't be worked on. Although inititally hiding behind Akira and other chracters when in public, she eventually learns that it's okay to go outside without being scared. Yusuke Kitagawa is especially sympathetic to Futaba, even with their constant fighting.
She eventually learns about her mothers death not being a suicide, and instead being a mental shutdown disguised as a suicide. The reason for this was because Wakaba was a Cognitive Pscientist who ended up researching "too much."
Futaba also notes that the fake MedJeds' code seemed like it was pasted from somewhere else, as it had absoutely no quirks in it like usual code from a real coder.
#3 Kasumi Yoshizawa
Arcana - Faith
Kasumi Yoshizawa is a first year transfer-student who's also a gymnast in Persona 5: Royal.
Kasumi is mostly cheerful and upbeat for most of the game, being a motivator for Akira throughout the game. She can appear to be quite clumsy and careless at times, but it all goes towards her endearing nature. She has a Shujin scholarship, which sponsors her gymnastics activity. Although she's upbeat and happy, the smallest of mistakes can send her into a small bout of depression. While she practices gymnastics, she says she feels as if her body isn't her own, and she can't properly execute complicated moves.
On October 3rd, Akira sees Kasumi near a construction site. She has the MetaNav app, even though she doesn't know what it is and isn't convinced that the Phantom Thieves are entirely right. She accidentally activates the navigator when a passerby corrects somebody next to them, saying that the construction site was for a stadium and not a research lab. The palace itself is a fusion between a pscientific hospital and perfectly created futuristic paradise. In this palace, a shadow attacks her which caused her to half-awaken to her persona, Cendrillon. After defeating the shadow, they leave the palace. Although Morgana tries convincing her to join the Phantom Thieves, she refuses.
If the third semester of the game is unlocked, the player finds that "Kasumi" is living a lie. Sumire Yoshizawa is her real identity, and it's found in the 9th palace that Sumire was living as her dead sister for the entire game. While seeking a therapist (who happens to be the palace owner,) she states that she can't help but think her life would be better if she was her sister, Kasumi Yoshizawa. That way, her sister would be able to achieve the dream that she believes she took away from her. With that, she's told to believe in herself by said therapist and her cognititon almost immediately changes. She puts her sisters' ribbon on, and says she feels like she's been reborn.
Sumire Yoshizawa
Sumire Yoshizawa is truly a reserved person who's more introverted than one would think by her previous behavior as her sister. She's depressed which is why, even as Kasumi, she would get upset over small things and be quite hard on herself. She's so convinced of her own worthlessness that any attempts to cheer her up when she's upset are refuted, as she resents when people try to make her feel better. She changes for the better throughout the third semester and her confidant.
Sumire feels inadequate compared to her sister, Kasumi, which caused her to develop an inferiority complex towards her. This is only fueled by her sister constantly trying to help her out, which she saw as competition and bragging from her sister. Her sister did most of the work in the house, including her bedroom arrangement. Athough Kasumi would try to cheer her sister up, Sumire only saw it as patronizing rather than a genuine concern for her well being. her anger and inferiority complex towards her sister is eventually what got her killed.
Her sister, Kasumi, got killed after rushing in front of a car to save her sisters life. This event is what made Sumire realize how much her sister cared about her. This caused her to feel even worse than before, adding survivor's guilt on to her depression and mental instability.
After learning the truth, she resists her true identity at first, allowing herself to become brainwashed once more by the palace ruler after viewing the tapes inside and meeting them. Although the ruler isn't who she expected to see, she's depressed about her sister's death, and doesn't know what to do after finding out about the truth. After being defeated by the team, she realizes she can't allow her life to be controlled by somebody else. With encouragement from the Phantom Thieves, she begins to accept her true self and won't allow herself to fall back into the depression she once found herself in.
#2 Goro Akechi
Arcana - Justice
Goro Akechi, the Highschool Detective Prince, is a detective investigating the Phantom Thieves of Hearts epidemic in Japan with an ulterior motive in Persona 5.
Akechi appears of be a well-mannered, friendly person who wants the best for Japan. He's known for being humble and charismatic as well. Being attractive as well as intelligent has made him popular among teenage girls all over Japan, even being nicknamed "The Second Coming of the Highschool Detective Prince." Being a smooth-talker had allowed him to conduct his own investigations alongside Sae Nijima, who trusts him greatly. Being the Justice major arcana, he presents himself as having a strong sense of it and dissaproves of the Phantom Thieves. He says that he believes it's the job of law enforcement to decide if somebody needs to own up their crimes or not.
His entire personality shown on TV and in his job is nothing but a facade used to help him gain the trust of the public. Being an illegitimate child, his father, who turns out to be the politician Masayoshi Shido left him and his mother when he was young and due to his mother's suicide at a young age, he was passed around homes during his childhood. Akechi grew up lonely and had no friends, which only fueled his constant desire to be loved and praised by others. Being constantly alone and unwanted caused him to grow a warped, misanthropic view of the world. His desperation to be wanted and praised led to him studying hard at his school to become the highschool detective prince. Even with people in his life who constantly admire him, he's been unable to fill the hole in his heart because he knows he's not wanted for who he really is. People want to see Goro Akechi, the Second Coming of the Detective Prince, and not Goro Akechi as himself. He's constantly pressured by public expectations to be perfect, and knows he only has support from others if he continues acting as the charasmatic highschool detective, as his fanbase started to turn on him when he was wrong about Kaneshiro and MedJed. In one scene, Akechi is on TV, talking about the Phantom Thieves. He states that he'll try his best to find out who they are, but it'll be difficult with his school work. While the croud cheers, he thinks about how nobody in the room knows about him being an illegitimate, undesirable child.
His hatred for his father only grows throughout the game, and he even lets his father use him to perform mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns on other people so they wouldn't be a problem during the election to gain his trust. Although knowing Shido was just using him, he allowed himself to be manipulated to get revenge later. His obsession with getting revenge caused him to go insane, with him meeting the Phantom Thieves in Shido's palace and forcing himself into a psychotic breakdown so he can fight them. This scene revealed that he was Black Mask, the killer of the fifth palace's owner, Okumura.
Right before the final fight, he has a small speech stating, "Teammates? Friends? To hell with that! Why am I inferior to you?" He states how particular he was about his life, grades and public image, and questioned how he still has nothing while Akira has everything he ever wanted. After being defeated, he admits he was wrong and blinded by his hatred due to trauma. Afterwards, he sacrifices himself to save everybody else, and Futaba admits that there's "no signal on the other side."
Third Semester Goro Akechi
Goro Akechi is cold, blunt, and no longer cares about what others think of him in the third semester of Persona 5: Royal.
Akechi re-appears suddenly on Christmas Eve, while Akira is talking to Sae Nijima about turning himself in for evidence on Shido. Akechi says that he'll take his place and go instead, since he has a debt to repay to Akira.
He's dropped his charming detective prince persona, as he knows that nobody cares about him being on TV anymore. He's comfortable with his true self, and isn't afraid to show who he truly is anymore. He's blunt and doesn't sugarcoat things, and although he no longer holds malice towards the Phantom Thieves, he's not any nicer to them than before. He dislikes small-talk, and his cold nature surprises Sumire, as she's only known him as being a formal, but kind person. He overhears her telling Akira this, and asks if working with a "ruthless sort of person" was too much for her. She apologizes and they move on. His sense of humor has become morbidly dry, and at one point jokes about killing the 9th palace owner for what he's done to Sumire and the rest of the team, including him. Although still remaining somewhat formal, when he's in combat, he drops the act and becomes much more vulgar. He finds joy in killing shadows and even refers to them as "worthless scum."
When talking to Akira about whether they're going to accept the new reality or not, if he even considers taking the new reality, Akechi gets upset and says his life shouldn't matter to him. He also states that he's done having his life controlled by somebody else.
