Yu Narukami

Yu Narukami is the protagonist of Persona 4, its incarnations, and its sequels. While he is actually an unnamed character in Persona 4, he has the name Yu Narukami in Persona 4 Arena which exists in the same continuity as Persona 4 and remains as a canon title.

Appearances

 * Persona 4: Protagonist
 * Persona 4 Manga: Protagonist as Souji Seta
 * Persona 4 The Animation: Protagonist as Yu Narukami
 * Persona 4 Arena: Playable Character as Yu Narukami
 * Persona 4 Golden: Protagonist

Design
The protagonist has short, bowl-shaped gray hair with matching gray eyes. He has a pale complexion and is quite tall, although is only a head shorter than fellow Persona user Kanji Tatsumi. At school and in the Midnight Channel, the protagonist wears the conventional school uniform of Yasogami High and wears gray glasses in battle. In the summer, he wears a light uniform. On days off, he is shown wearing a black jacket and gray turtleneck shirt along with black pants. On days off in the summer, he wears a white collar shirt with short sleeves and brown pants. At the school festival while crossdressing, he uses a female uniform with black leggings as well as a wig with long pigtails. The protagonist also has a black blazer which he occasionally is seen wearing in the manga adaption of the game.

In Persona 4 the Animation at home, he only wears a different colored version of his casual clothes, unlike in the game where he is shown in his uniform while at home.

In Persona 4 Golden during the newly added Halloween event, he dresses as a magician, wearing a huge black top hat, a white chemise along with black suspenders and black pants. In winter, he now wears a snow suit with a beanie ang yellow goggles, black turtleneck and possibly a white sweater vest. In colder days in the winter, he wears a white winter coat with black and white pad scarf and matching black gloves under his school uniform.

Personality
The Persona 4 hero is a silent protagonist except for instances where he speaks when summoning a Persona and so on. His personality is ultimately based on the player's actions and decisions.

In Persona 4 Manga, he is depicted as being a distant but otherwise friendly loner with a pessimistic outlook on life due to having to move frequently as a result of his parents' demanding careers.

In Persona 4 The Animation, he is depicted as quiet and polite. He has a dry sense of humor, and sometimes does questionable things which he thinks are funny. He also seems a bit naive and oblivious to certain situations. Overall, Yu is a much livelier character compared to his game counterpart. Before the awakening of his Persona, Yu seemed to be emotionless and cold at times as well as occasionally deadpan. Afterwards, however, he is known to value the bond of friendship between the members of the Investigation Team and is highly concerned about his friends. It is shown that he will go through great lengths in order to help others.

Persona 4

 * Initial Persona: Izanagi
 * Ultimate Persona: Izanagi-no-Okami
 * Arcana: Fool, World

The Protagonist first appears in the Velvet Room, which is shown in a first person point of view. There he encounters Igor and his assistant, Margaret. Igor reads the Protagonist's future, and asks him his name, giving players the chance to name him. Igor remarks that a mystery awaits the Protagonist, and that it is his fate to discover it. Igor then introduces Margaret, and bids farewell to the Protagonist. The Protagonist later awakens from his subconscious, and reminiscences about his old school prior leaving.

Upon reaching Yasoinaba, the Protagonist meets up with his uncle Ryotaro Dojima, who introduces his daughter, Nanako Dojima , to the Protagonist. On the way back to the Dojima residence, Dojima stops by the gas station to refill his car, and the Protagonist is welcomed by an attendant of the Moel Gas Station, who offers him a job in the gas station. Before they drive off, the attendant gives the Protagonist a handshake. Shortly after the Protagonist begins to feel somewhat sick, but dismisses it as carsickness as they go on their way.

Later, after the Protagonist falls asleep, he awakens in a fog-ridden area .There, he hears a voice, telling him to follow it if he wishes to find the truth. The Protagonist eventually encounters a human presence, but the heavy fog makes it impossible to see the other person. The voice claims to be intrigued by the Protagonist, and decides to lend him his power for the time being. The next day, the Protagonist enrolls into Yasogami High School and befriends Chie Satonaka and Yukiko Amagi, and befriends Yosuke Hanamura the next morning after he helps him from his bicycle accident.

Yosuke later invites the Protagonist to Yasoinaba's delicacy store as a sign of gratitude. However, he changes his plans when Chie overhears his invitation, and takes both the Protagonist and Chie to Junes' food court. He then reveals that his father is the manager of this particular Junes, and that Yosuke himself transferred in about a year back. Chie later tells the Protagonist and Yosuke about the urban legend of the Midnight Channel, and asks them to try it out. The Protagonist also meets Saki Konishi, an upperclassman and Yosukes senpai who is working at the Junes. Later in the night, the Protagonist tries to gain access to the Midnight Channel and sees a blurred image of a female student in his TV. Intrigued, the Protagonist touches the screen of his TV, and discovers that he can reach his hand inside the TV set. Much to his horror, the TV pulls him in, but gets stuck instead because the TV screen was too small for his size. He manages to pull himself out and accidentally knocks himself on the head.

The next morning, the Protagonist, Yosuke and Chie have a discussion about their discovery, and come to the conclusion that they all saw the same female student. The Protagonist tells Yosuke and Chie about how he was sucked in the TV, and the latter two assume it was a weird dream. Chie later tells them her family plans to buy a wide-screen TV, and asks Yosuke what he would recommend among the cheap sets that Junes carry. The trio go to the electronics department of Junes, and go over the TV sets on display. The Protagonist tries to re-enter the TV, this time, using a wide-screen TV large enough to insert his body in. Seeing the Protagonist stuck midway inside the TV, Yosuke and Chie try to hide him. Yosuke runs off in a panic to use the bathroom, only to come back as a number of people are approaching, and he and Chie accidentally push themselves and the Protagonist in the TV, and the three fall on the other side of the TV, the Midnight Channel.

Inside the Midnight Channel, the trio is shocked to see their surroundings and begin to panic. The trio anxiously tries to find the entrance from which they came, but after failing to do so, they decide to check around the area. In their exploration, they find a room with a noose and a stool, covered with posters of a woman wearing a kimono. However, all the faces on the posters are ripped off. At this point, everyone begins to feel a bit sick, so they decide to head back the way they came. Eventually, they encounter a bear, who urges them to leave the television world. The trio confesses their inability to doing so, and losing his patience, the bear summons a stack of three TVs, and promptly pushes them into the stack, forcefully ejecting the trio out of the Midnight Channel.

The next day, during a school assembly, the team learns that Saki had passed away in a violent accident. Devastated, Yosuke swears to investigate the Midnight Channel, and they conclude that the female student they witnessed on the Midnight Channel must have been her. He asks the Protagonist to help him, as he is the only one who is able to enter the TV. The Protagonist and Yosuke enter the Midnight Channel one more time, leaving Chie behind to keep her out of harm. Inside the Midnight Channel, the Protagonist and Yosuke once again encounter the bear, who introduces himself as Teddie. Infuriated by their presence, Teddie angrily asks them whether they are responsible of "throwing people" inside the Midnight Channel. Upon learning that the Protagonist and Yosuke aren't responsible, Teddie makes the pair promises to help find the culprit, and gives them a pair of glasses, allowing them to see through the fog in the Midnight Channel.

During their investigation, the Protagonist and Yosuke are ambushed by monsters that Teddie calls Shadows. The Protagonist hears a voice, calling out to him to awaken his true self, and is presented with a tarot card. Crushing the card, the Protagonist awakens his initial Persona, Izanagi, and dispatches the Shadows. Bewildered by his power, Teddie is intrigued by the Protagonist and comes to respect him, much to Yosuke's dismay.

The Protagonist and Yosuke later end up in Saki's family's liquor store. In there, they hear an inner voice of Saki expressing her hatred towards Yosuke for being annoying and Junes for ruining her family's business. While Yosuke is surprised and devastated by this revelation, another 'Yosuke' makes his entrance, and mocks him for hating having a boring life and wanting to be the hero that would solve the case of Saki's death. Under Yosuke's continuous declination of his shadow's taunts, the other 'Yosuke' transforms into a Shadow and attacks them. The Protagonist defeats the shadow using his Persona and Yosuke is forced to come to terms with his true feelings, which awakens his first Persona, Jiraiya. The Protagonist and Yosuke leave the Midnight Channel and are angrily scolded by a worried Chie in the real world.

Later on at night, the Protagonist tries to tune in the Midnight Channel once again, and encounters a blurry image of a young woman in kimono. Yosuke concludes that it is an image of Yukiko Amagi, as the image shown is wearing the same kimono as Yukiko wore during a TV interview. To further complicate the issue, Yukiko hasn't been showing up to the school, and Chie becomes worried. Yukiko later reveals she's been busy helping out at her family inn and has been forced to skip school. However, still worried, Yosuke suggests the Protagonist to tune in the Midnight Channel tonight as well.

During that night, the Protagonist encounters a weird show called "Princess Yukiko's Search for Prince Charming" in the Midnight Channel, where Yukiko is dressed up as a princess in a journey of scoring herself a "hot stud", or a Prince Charming. As Yukiko's behavior in the TV was rather bizarre and out of what she would normally do, Yosuke calls the Protagonist, and suggests them to meet up in the Junes Food Court the next morning.

The Protagonist, along with Yosuke and Chie, eventually sets out to rescue Yukiko, and along their way Chie faces herself, and receives her own Persona. The Protagonist, Yosuke, and Chie later create the Investigation Team, dedicated to investigating the origins of the Midnight Channel and solving the bizarre murder cases.

Through the Investigation Team's activity within the Midnight Channel, however, they all express the same question upon the Protagonist's latent talent of invoking his Persona without having to face his other self. As the story progress, the Protagonist receives an anonymous threat letter telling him to stop his activities of saving people. Though the Investigation Team was worried, they've decided to continue watching the Midnight Channel, ignoring the letter's threat. The Protagonist eventually receives the threat again after the Investigation Team continuously ignores the threat; this time, however, the letter directly tells the Protagonist that if he does not stop his actions, someone close to him will die. The letter was later discovered by Ryotaro Dojima, and upon thinking about the Protagonist's possible connection with the recent chain of events, the Protagonist was detained in the Police station. Ryotaro eventually coerces the Protagonist to spend a a night in the police station, but during midnight, the he is shocked to see Nanako's silhouette in the Midnight Channel, who is revealed to have been kidnapped. The Investigation Team eventually find out Nanako's kidnapper and the one sending the threat letters based on bits of information salvaged by Dojima. The Investigation Team finds out the true murderer is actually Taro Namatame, the lover of Mayumi Yamano, the first victim.

The Investigation Team eventually succeeds in saving Nanako, but Nanako's health begins to deteriorate critically after her exposure to the Midnight Channel, inevitably falling into a coma. The Protagonist's decision on what to do with Namatame will determine whether she will wake up or die from the coma. The Investigation Team eventually manages to sneak in Namatame's ward. Grief ridden and devastated, the Investigation Team tries to kill Namatame by pushing him through the his hospital room's TV. Depending on the Protagonist' decisions of dealing with Namatame, Nanako may die or awaken once again.

Neutral ending
The Neutral Ending is the result of the player calming the Investigation Team down and failing to identify the culprit. This will result in Nanako being revived but remaining in a coma and Teddie returning to the TV world. The game then skips to the Spring where we see the protagonist preparing to return home and Ryotaro asking him if he's ready, telling the protagonist that it is too bad that Nanako is unable to see him off due to her hospitalization. The protagonist finally returns home, leaving the mystery unsolved.

Bad Ending
In the Bad Ending, if the player decides to find and kill Namatame after Nanako is hospitalized, Nanako will die. The protagonist will then have to move back to his hometown, never finding the real culprit.

Normal Ending
In the Normal Ending, the protagonist manages to calm down the Investigation Team, and points out his doubts about Namatame being the murderer. The Investigation Team eventually found out the murderer of Mayumi Yamano and Saki Konishi is actually Tohru Adachi, who was also the one sending him the threat letters. Cornering him, the Investigation Team manages to defeat Tohru Adachi. However, after Adachi's defeat, it reveals that in actuality, Adachi was only playing a small role of the whole plan: he was controlled by a being named Ameno-sagiri, who plans to turn reality into a Shadow-ridden world. The Investigation Team eventually manages to defeat Ameno-sagiri, and proving humans' potential towards Ameno-sagiri, Ameno-sagiri promises to lift up the fog that has been infesting Yasoinaba, but exclaims that as long as humanity wishes for the fog to return, he will awaken once again. The Normal Ending ends with the protagonist bidding a heartfelt farewell to his friends, and leaves Yasoinaba.

True Ending
The True Ending takes up following the events of Ameno-sagiri's defeat. Similar to the Normal Ending, the protagonist decides to visit his friends one last time. Prior to leaving the Dojima Residence, Nanako gives to protagonist a letter. After bidding farewell to his friends, should the protagonist decide to regroup the Investigation Team one last time in Junes, this unlocks the True Ending. The protagonist opens the letter and in it, Adachi informs him even though his game is over, there's still something he couldn't shake off, and it's up to the protagonist to solve it.

The Investigation Team eventually realizes that Ameno-sagiri said that those who've awakened their powers are supposed to play their roles to override the world with shadows as well, meaning that there's actually a conductor behind it all and this person is the one who gave the protagonist, Adachi, and Namatame their power to enter the TV as well as their Personas. Igor would later then tells the protagonist that he is going to grasp a truth even his powers cannot predict, and he will play a role in assisting the protagonist. Igor then gives the protagonist the Orb of Sight, which erases lies and reveals the truth, playing an important part of the final boss fight.

Reminiscing his actions during his first visit to Yasoinaba, the protagonist remembers the gas station attendant, and eventually goes to visit her during the rain. The attendant reveals that she took an interest in the protagonist's potential, and decides to give his powers a little push through their handshake. The attendant also mentions that Adachi, Namatame, and many others are awakened by her as well. She stirred the spark in the protagonist so he could awaken other peoples' Personas, and fulfill their role in her experiment.

However, the protagonist's power of the Wild Card is something the attendant did not foresee. The attendant also reveals that Ameno-sagiri is actually birthed from an aspect of her. Chastising the protagonist's greed to reach out for the truth, the attendant finally reveals her true identity: the great goddess Izanami. Izanami then tells the protagonist that since he is so determined to stop her, she shall await the protagonist in the other world, but tells him that he should also have the preparation to accept his loss towards her as well.

Ion the protagonist's final confrontation with Izanami, he uses the Orb of Sight, revealing Izanami is already dead, as she loses her current frm and reveals her true form, Izanami-no-Okami.

When Izanami-no-Okami is on the verge of being defeated, she tries to send the protagonist to the underworld with her "Thousand Curses", but her attacks is repeatedly intervened by the protagonist' comrades, each shielding him from harm. After falling to the curse himself, the Protagonist hears the voices of his friends, telling him to continue fighting on. Accumulating the power of the bonds he forged, the Protagonist channels the powers of his Social Links to his initial Persona, Izanagi, transmogrifying Izanagi into his true form, Izanagi-no-Okami. Returning to the battle and enduring all of Izanami's assaults, he summons Izanagi-no-Okami defeating Izanami with Myriad Truths.

Upon Izanami's defeat, Izanami tells the Investigation Team that she will no longer interfere with humanity, and encourages them to live their lives with their own decisions, though she cannot ensure their happiness. Igor would later tell the Protagonist that due to his efforts, the fog within humanity's hearts has finally lifted, and tells them to see the bright future of the world he had created with his own eyes. The fog on the Midnight Channel then lifted, revealing a beautiful, peaceful land which Teddie remembers was once the world he lived in. The story ends with the Protagonist bidding a heartfelt farewell to his friends and leaves Yasoinaba; as the train leaves the station, the Protagonist pulls out a group picture of the friends that he spent his year in Inaba with whilst Teddie's voice is heard in the background, promising that someday they will meet again.

Persona 4 The Animation
In the anime, he is given the name Yu Narukami (鳴上 悠, Narukami Yuu). Yu starts off wearing the Yasogami High School uniform like in the game, but in the most recent trailer he arrived in Inaba he wearing his winter clothes instead of his uniform. For much of the first episode he wears his uniform buttoned up like most students, but he unbuttons the jacket upon releasing Izanagi.

Battle Quotes

 * "Izanagi!" or the name of any of his other Personas, e.g. "Pixie!", "Satan!", "Jack Frost!" and etc. (Enemy weak to attack/Critical with Phys skill)
 * Persona! (Using Persona skill)
 * Zio! (When he uses a Zio spell at times)

Etymology
The protagonist's last name is Narukami (鳴神) which literally means means "Howling God" in Japanese. It is most likely a reference to a recurring entity in the series and to his initial element Electricity, since Narukami is the Japanese god of Thunder. As for the first name, Yu, it probably stems from the phonic similarity to the word, "you", referring to the fact that the protagonist was once an unnamed character controlled by the player in Persona 4.

Persona 4 Arena Moveset
Some of Yu's moves in Arena are named after certain expressions, such as Kenkon Itteki (乾坤一擲 lit. For All or Nothing) and Shishijunjin (獅子奮迅 lit. Lion Flourished Swiftness).

Trivia

 * The protagonist is the second tallest member of the Investigation team, being a head shorter than Kanji Tatsumi.
 * The calender in his room in the Dojima Residence features both the logo of Persona 3 as well as a promotional art of the game.
 * When Yu hears Jika Net Tanaka, he describes it as a cheery song unlike the protagonist of Persona 3 who describes it as an annoying song. This implies that, despite the player's choices, he and the protagonist of Persona 3 have some semblence of a personality.
 * Yu has at least basic knowledge of the Korean language as there are various books in his room which are written in Hangeul, the Korean writing system.
 * In Persona 4, Yu always attacks with two hands however in Persona 4 Arena, Yu holds his sword with one hand in his idle animation but switches between a one handed and two handed style throughout a match.