PLAYER
Player name: Crystal
Contact: draconian.eclipse@gmail.com | likeredgold
Characters currently in-game: N/A

CHARACTER
Character Name: Futaba Sakura
Character Age: 15
Canon: Persona 5
Canon Point: End Game

History: Futaba's entry on the Shin Megami Tensei wiki.

Persona 5 is an urban fantasy RPG that takes place in modern day Tokyo. The team of protagonists is comprised of teenagers that call themselves the Phantom Thieves. This ragtag bunch crosses over into an alternate dimension that is layered over the real world and is known as the Metaverse. While in the Metaverse, the Thieves face off against Shadow versions of various corrupt adults within “Palaces” that reflect these adults’ distorted desires. To free the adults of these desires and force them to confess, the Thieves steal the treasures of their hearts—the source of each person’s distortions—causing them to reform and confess to their crimes. Futaba is the third person to join the team after the initial founding four after she requests the thieves steal her heart to free her from her desire to die. A majority of her character’s motivations, history, and personality are revealed in the game’s fourth dungeon—which takes place inside her own palace. Additional details of her past come in through the social links the protagonist can develop with both her and her father Sojiro Sakura. She is a party member, though she plays a support role and thus is not overtly playable in battles. However, she plays a core part in the development of the plot, specifically with how her hacking skills assist in future missions, plot points, and major events.

Personality: Futaba has a high level of social anxiety that, at the moment we meet her, borders on straight-up agoraphobia. She is uncomfortable with going outside and can be said to be part of the hikikomori subculture. This subculture is made of reclusive adolescents or adults that withdraw from social life, and those that subscribe to it are considered “modern-day hermits.” Her Arcana social link as The Hermit is quite literal. In fact, when she does go outside it is initially while hiding behind the protagonist or while wearing masks that make it impossible to identify her.

However, having disconnected herself from humanity at large, Futaba is an extremely lonely person. Before the protagonist and the Phantom Thieves come into her life she lived without passion or enthusiasm and suffered from suicidal depression. When the Thieves finally do come onto the scene she is so consumed with self-loathing, believing herself to be responsible for her mother’s death (to which she was a witness), that she only has the wish to die. It is these feelings that she asks the Thieves to rob her of--without any other solution, she can only hope that these people can "steal her heart" and cure her of it.

Essentially, she does not believe she is capable of overcoming these self-deprecating thoughts on her own. A part of her thinks she deserves it for what happened to her mother. It is her decision to follow the Thieves into the cognitive representation of her desires--into her own palace that she begins to act for herself. After entering her own palace, stealing her treasure (her own self-worth), and joining the Phantom Thieves Futaba began to see a change in herself. She begins to open up more and becomes more relaxed around them. She teases the other members (particularly Morgana and Yusuke for their oddities and Ryuji for his moments of idiocy). She is more outspoken with what can be said to be her first real friends since becoming a recluse. It is almost a complete 180 from how she initially interacted with the group and with how she reacts to and interacts with people outside their social sphere.

Futaba’s specialty is technology, centering in on her obsession with computers. She is a skilled coder and hacker, even managing to hack all of the screens in Shibuya (and likely the whole of Tokyo judging by the map) to display the calling card for one Masayoshi Shido. She uses her connection to the internet as a means of fantasy (video games) and escapism, and often responds to social situations as if they are a game—at one point she even asks Mishima if he’s an NPC. Given her withdrawal from people, this is likely a means of coping with unfamiliar or overwhelming situations and thus is her way of relating to others. Essentially, she can be awkward, but she is now attempting to have those connections with other people.

Outside of struggling with identifying and interacting with her peers, Futaba also makes attempts to repair her relationship with her caretaker Sojiro. While she shares his name, Futaba is actually his adopted daughter. Prior to her adoption, Futaba had been jostled from family member to family member until her uncle Youji Isshiki took her in. Sojiro learned that her uncle was abusing her, not allowing her to bathe or use a bed, and this moved him to pay Youji to gain custody of Futaba. However, the abuse she suffered only added to her issues by causing her to develop PTSD. This led Sojiro to let her do as she pleased, which only allowed her to further withdraw from society as a whole.

Futaba's withdrawal put a strain on her relationship with Sojiro, as she refused to really allow him in as well and her guardian hardly knew how to press the issue without making issues worse. They are not sure how to deal with one another as it is, and coming out of her shell suddenly puts them back in one another's space. Despite the distance that exists between them, Futaba cares about Sojiro and doesn't want to burden him. She comes to learn that her uncle is threatening Sojiro with legal action if he doesn’t get more money. When Futaba tries to help using her hacking skills, Sojiro chides her and laments that he hasn’t been able to give her a proper home. She takes it to mean he doesn’t want her and runs off to the attic. They are only able to reconcile with the help of the protagonist, who makes them listen to one another. Sojiro offers to let Futaba stay with him—“forever” if she wants—and their relationship finally begins to develop and heal.

We truly see what Sojiro means to her when her uncle’s meddling causes Social Services to come to Leblanc with a report against Sojiro. Both Futaba and the protagonist make it clear that they and Sojiro care for one another and have become a family—Futaba even goes so far to call Sojiro her “dad”. Despite the history their relationship is built on, she still considers Sojiro family, someone that she can truly rely on in this world.

Abilities:
The Power of Persona: The power of a persona is gained by the awakening of one's rebellious spirit; that spirit is then manifested into a powerful being. In Mask or Menace this would be a summon of sorts—an manifestation of her inner-will. Initially, Futaba will possess the ability to summon Necronomicon as her default persona; however, in-game development and a fully developed social link could allow her to specifically summon her ultimate persona Prometheus to aid those that possess that developed link/relationship with her. As her persona's role is merely a means of support, a switch to Prometheus for specific people in the game would only represent a more powerful bond and thus more accurate and effective use of her persona based powers.

Both Necronomicon and Prometheus have nearly identical skill sets, the focus is simply different. These skills are foe analysis, post-battle HP recovery, and post-battle SP recovery. These would specifically translate into the ability to get basic biometric screenings (foe analysis), health recovery/healing of minor wounds (HP) and minor stamina recovery for magic/elemental/persona users (SP) in Mask or Menace. In regards to the health recovery, it is likely that minor scrapes, bruises etc. could be healed while more serious wounds would likely still need to be treated by a full medical staff—she might just buy people more time to get to those medical centers.

The difference between her personas comes in the form of specification. Analysis for Prometheus confirms affinities for foes previously encountered, whereas Necronomicon would only be able to analyze a single foe. Essentially, if the foe is one that was encountered before, the biometric screenings in Mask or Menace might provide additional details if Prometheus is in use, whereas Necronomicon would only provide a very basic screening of a single foe. Additionally, all health and stamina recoveries are specified to be used for backup allies only if Prometheus is the persona used, meaning that it wouldn’t necessarily be useful to anyone on the front lines, but can aid those she has easy access to from her support position. Finally, Prometheus has an additional ability that allows for the persona to identify if a foe in question is holding a rare item at the start of a battle (skill titled Treasure Skimmer)—this would likely only be of use if a particular mission in Mask or Menace had a reward set up for the defeat of a foe, and even then, this skill has a low-level accuracy and would thus only be successful with mod/event organizer approval.

Elite Hacking: Futaba, in canon, is a technological genius. She was a strong arm of the hacking group Medjed (think Anonymous) before joining with the Phantom Thieves. She managed to take down a group pretending to be Medjed as well. Additionally, this girl was able to hack all of Shibuya's broadcasting screens to project a calling card for Masayoshi Shido--and combat counter-efforts by the police in real-time. To be able to do this successfully, Futaba would ned to be skilled in data manipulation. She is able to read, understand, and manipulate binary, visible computer information, and data. She can also use this data to crack programming and site coding.

Futaba is also a skilled coder, which she uses to design unique codexes for hacking uses as well as designing programs of her own. She designed and covertly installed what is essentially malware on Goro Akechi's phone, allowing her to remotely record his phone calls to understand his plans. Additionally, she coded a program that remotely drew anyone that had contact with a particular cellular device to be drawn into the Metaverse--an alternate reality that represents the desires of individuals.

Hermit Confidant: Futaba's final power is an extension of her power of Persona. In canon, the more developed your relationships with confidants, the more bonuses or perks you would get with that character. Essentially, the more developed one's relationship with Futaba, the more she will be able to utilize her skills to aid other's in real-time. While this is not necessarily a power in and of itself, some of the perks are unique and develop on existing skills to create new abilities and bonuses. These perks are dependent on the Social Link (S-Link) Rank a character has with Futaba. These Ranks ranged from a level 1 to a level 10.

These skills would be modified to reduce the overreach of her abilities and to keep them from potentially breaking game. In regards to the S-Links Rank 1 and 6, Futaba would need to use her own persona to provide healing or stamina recovery to her allies, which would influence her own stamina. These powers tie directly into her Persona’s so while they may receive a minor boost due to the bond with Futaba, they would not be significantly powered—she could not bring someone back from the dead or the brink of death for example. When it comes to S-Link Rank 2 and 4, Futaba would have a slightly higher probability of successfully hacking into building and mapping data, and may have a slightly higher success rate of interfacing with enemy technology to rewrite specific programming. Once again, the benefits for S-Link Rank 7 and 9 are removed and thus have no effect in game. Finally, considering S-Link 10 is a blockade of sorts, I would not deem that a particular power, but merely identify it as her potential and likelihood of self-sacrifice/playing human-persona shield as being significantly higher. There are no bonuses for S-Link Ranks 3, 5, or 8.

Flaws: Futaba’s biggest flaw is tied up in the death of her mother. Following her death, several men in suits came and read her a suicide note that her mother supposedly wrote (spoilers: she didn’t write it). This letter blamed Wakaba’s death on Futaba, blame that her family continued to place on her as well as abusing her mentally, physically, and emotionally. Due to this abuse, Futaba developed a severe social anxiety disorder that is close to agoraphobia. She doesn’t attend school and, up until she fully joins the thieves, never leaves her room.

This disconnection from humanity and peers her own age causes Futaba to wallow in depression. This depressive attitude has affected her to the point that she suffers from psychological hallucinations, the fear that she was the cause of her mother’s suicide manifesting as audial and visual hallucinations wherein she is continually blamed. These hallucinations led to suicidal ideation—she believes herself unworthy of living in this world. While these two issues have been seen through to a positive conclusion, she has shown that she can slip back into this depression—specifically seen after the failure of the Thieves in confronting the Will of the People in the depths of the Metaverse. Given the right (or wrong) push, she could fall into this negativity again.

SAMPLES
Action Log Sample: The arena was a surprise. The Metaverse had, as far as she knew, been disabled—the app no longer present on her phone, and this definitely didn’t have the same oppressive feel as that plane had. But she could feel the familiar hum of power under her skin, the call of her Persona at her periphery. It should have been comforting, and it would have been, if not for the fact she was utterly alone.


A shuffling to her left—okay, maybe not completely alone. She’d have to keep her wits about her.

“Oh, this isn’t good…” The tracks in the dust and dirt, the discarded (if not completely shattered) weapons, spoke to the challenges faced in this arena. She was the navigator, the defensive position with all of the supports and buffs. She was not meant for active combat. Still, she couldn’t die here.

She took slow careful steps, trying not to disturb too much of her surroundings. With any luck, she’d be safe so long as she was quiet. There were shapes in the shadows—shifting, terrifying shapes. I can do this—I have to do this. If she could just survive and get out of here, she could focus on find help—or her friends. Will they even be here?? On one hand, she hoped they would be. On the other hand…She kind of hoped they hadn’t been pulled into this same dangerous mess.

The shifting shapes chose this moment to come out of the shadows—the lizards weren’t that intimidating when they were visible. And then they started breathing fire in her general direction. Great—this couldn’t get better. At least her sarcasm could outlast her panic.

“Come PERSONA.” She was used to running defense, to not having to call for Necronomicon in the field—but that did feel a bit empowering. Her panic fell to her adrenalin, letting her think more clearly. Her eyes scanned the arena while Necronomicon wrapped her in tentacles and pulled her into the safety of its chassis. Nothing but the lizards…Let’s get out of here. The silent command registered with her Persona, the lizards being left behind on ground as they soared over the walls of the colosseum to freedom.

Now she just had to learn more about where she was—and how she could possibly get home.