Yukari Takeba

Yukari Takeba is a character from Persona 3. She is a student of Gekkoukan High School, and a member of SEES.

Appearances

 * Persona 3: Playable character, Lovers Arcana Social Link
 * Persona 3 FES: Playable character, Lovers Arcana Social Link
 * Persona 3 Portable: Playable character, Lovers Arcana Social Link
 * Persona 4 Arena (updated version): Playable character
 * Persona 3 Manga
 * Persona 3 The Movie 

Design
Yukari has short, light-brown hair and brown eyes. She is slightly shorter than the male and female protagonists in P3 and P3P. She is often seen with both her hands behind her back, except when holding her bow.

At school and in Tartarus, she wears a pink sweater jacket, a loose red ribbon, a black mini skirt, black stockings with white lines, and a heart-shaped choker. On the weekends and days off in the winter, she is seen wearing a long pink jacket and brown boots. On the weekends and days off in summer, and in A Certain Day of Summer, she wears a pink tank top with orange straps and detail, and faded navy blue pants. She is never seen without her heart-shaped choker except when in a bath towel (during the July Operation only male protagonist's storyline and Kyoto at their third day), in her pink and blue two-piece swimsuit (during the beach excursion in Yakushima), or in her kimono (during both the Summer and New Year's Festivals).

Personality
Yukari is very popular in Gekkoukan High School, known for good looks and her ability to easily get along with her peers. She is also known as the girl who rejects a lot of guys. Though she is known for her major moodswings, Yukari is actually friendly and caring towards her peers, especially towards Fuuka, and later, Mitsuru. She is careful not to let anyone close to her because of her 'shady' past, and constantly teases Junpei because of this. She opens up to the protagonist because she thinks they can relate in their parental issues. Also, whenever someone makes a perverted remark towards her (usually Junpei or Ryoji), she will respond by either stomping on that person's foot or slapping him. Yukari also has an irrational fear of ghosts and is easily spooked, which Junpei and Akihiko often take advantage of by teasing her about it or telling ghost stories.

Persona 3
Yukari Takeba is a dorm mate and classmate of the protagonist. She joins S.E.E.S. prior to the protagonist's arrival.

Yukari's zeal for investigation brings a lot of trouble, but also gains the group valuable allies and information. She often overestimates her capabilities, getting herself and others into risky situations beyond her control. She has a high aptitude for magic and her Persona excels in wind and healing spells. She is regarded as the heroine of the game, as she possesses several of a typical RPG heroine's qualities, such as being a healer, wielding a bow and arrow, being romantically involved with the main character, and being the first female companion to join the party.

Yukari is popular at Gekkoukan High School due to her cheery disposition and good looks, but she is careful not to let anyone get too close to her. Yukari's relationship with Junpei Iori was a childhood one, and her teasing of him was frequently returned, although the two seemed to be on a relatively good basis. Yukari hides her true motives from the group, and represses her emotions and her mood swings frequently in the game. From the start, she dislikes Mitsuru Kirijo, likely due to jealousy of Mitsuru's inhuman superiority and the conflict resulting from their fathers. She dislikes the idea of Fuuka Yamagishi joining the team, being concerned overall for her safety, although quickly opens up and befriends Fuuka afterwards, even asking her to aid in the investigation of her father, something Yukari was very uncomfortable with detailing anyone in on. Despite being hard on her teammates initially, she overall expresses a great deal of concern for all of their wellbeing, which likely plays into her role as a healer. At the start of the game, she has the most trouble summoning her Persona because holding the Evoker in the same manner as a gun when committing suicide distressed her.

Yukari's father worked for the Kirijo Group during the time they were conducting shadow research. He was opposed to the idea of bringing about The Fall, a stance that caused him to be killed by Mitsuru's grandfather. During these events, the gears were set into motion that creates most of the problems that S.E.E.S. is forced to overcome. After she discovers this, she feels guilty that her father was involved, and becomes more irritable and distant from the other members of S.E.E.S. However, the discovery of these events also helped Yukari come to terms with Mitsuru, since they actually had a lot in common as far as their past was concerned. Eventually Yukari realizes her faults, and her Persona becomes Isis.

Yukari's mother dealt with grieving for her husband by dating numerous shallow boyfriends and more or less abandoning her daughter. Yukari ends up alone, and coupled with the distress of losing her father, she became rather introverted, which is something that helps her connect with the protagonist, making him the only character she opens up to aside from Fuuka. After the protagonist consoles her after she has an emotional breakdown due to her father's supposed involvement in the creation of the Dark Hour and Tartarus, it is implied that she had fallen in love with him in the process; while this is hinted at several times during the course of the story in The Journey, her feelings for him are confirmed to be true in The Answer.

In The Lovers S.Link, the protagonist helps Yukari mend her relationship with her mother. Since Yukari is very popular, he must maximize his Charm statistic in order to ask her out. If the protagonist makes the correct choices, Yukari will fall in love with him. If the player chooses not to date any of the girls, Yukari will appear for the dating events. She possesses the most romantic events with the main character, being noted for being the only datable girl with romantic moments actually included within the story.

The Answer
After the protagonist's death, Yukari is the only one who seems to be reluctant to return to the dorm. Upon being invited by Fuuka to return to the dorm one last time, she promptly declines, saying that she has cram school to attend. When S.E.E.S realizes that strange events are happening in the dorm, she is called to return, an action which greatly annoys her. Throughout the investigation of the Abyss of Time, Yukari appears to be irritated that Aigis inherited Orpheus, along with the protagonist's Wild Card ability. Though she frequently displays mood-swing like behavior, the members of S.E.E.S seemingly tolerate her.

Upon defeating the manifestation of S.E.E.S' negative wills and desire to see the protagonist, she realizes that they have the ability to travel back to the time where the protagonist seals Nyx. Yukari, enraged by Aigis' indecisive nature as whether to return to the past or not lashes out, revealing that she's jealous of Aigis who was able to spend final moment together with him and heard his last word before his death. She proclaims that she wants to go back and stop the protagonist's actions. Yukari's decision is opposed by Akihiko and Ken since it would disrespecting the protagonist's will, with Junpei adding that by stopping the protagonist's actions, S.E.E.S would essentially undo their efforts of stopping the Fall.

As their opinions differ, the S.E.E.S members separate to fight each other and determine which person's opinion is right. Only Mitsuru supports Yukari's decision. When Aigis and Metis defeat all of the S.E.E.S members, Yukari finally admits her grief over the protagonist. She made a promise as well, but unlike Aigis, it was to herself. She promises to try to change the world to make people stop wishing for The Fall, but admits she can't be that person and she doesn't care about anything else anymore but seeing the protagonist again. The party, feeling her sorrow, comforts her. With her resolution strengthened, she decides to respect Aigis' decision of leaving the past the way it was.

S.E.E.S later returns to the time where the protagonist seals Nyx to know the true cause of his death, and it is here they finally learn that the protagonist becoming the Great Seal to prevent Nyx from being touched. They encounter Erebus, the grand manifestation of humanity's grief and sorrow. Upon defeating it, Yukari apologized to Aigis, admitting that she's jealous because she didn't inherit the Wild Card ability and realized that Aigis is the one who is actually suffered the most for his death. She, along with the other members of S.E.E.S make a promise that they will make the most out of their own lives in order to respect the protagonist's will and ease his burden. Yukari would later offer Aigis the chance to be her roommate, which Aigis gladly accepts.

Persona 3 Portable
Just like the previous games, Yukari is an available Social Link. However, if the player chose the female protagonist, there are no requirements to start her Social Link. The Social Link starts when the player talks to her in the classroom on or after the 28th of April. Her social link is similar to the male protagonist but slightly altered. Instead of falling in love like the original Persona 3, Yukari first talks to the female protagonist about the time she summoned her Persona and other events. Through the Social Link, she talks about friendship, boyfriends, and the female protagonist will help give her some advice and Yukari will looking forward to be her friend who understand her. But in Social Link 7, she protected Yukari from being run over by a car and ends up being injured. Yukari was extremely worried about the female protagonist getting hurt because of her. It is then revealed that she doesn't want to lose someone she cares about. When the player maximizes her social link, she decides to hold off getting a boyfriend for a while and decides to hang out with the female protagonist to enjoy the company of her best friend. Fuuka was also involved in events with Yukari and the two seemed to get along quite well on the female route, giving a sense of unity amongst the new members of SEES, and if the protagonist does not have a boyfriend, they will spend Christmas together.

Additionally, maxing out her social link on a New Game+ as the male character will allow the player to spend time with her during the final cutscene rather than Aigis.

There are several un-changed lines from the male protagonist's Social-Link. For example, Yukari will say that since she and the female protagonist started "going-out" and that she's changed a lot—both things that Yukari said in the male protagonist's Social-Link.

This also happens outside of the Link: During the hospital scene after the Magician Full-Moon boss fight, although Yukari's text says, "The moment She wakes up, I'll tell her everything", the voice-acting instead says "he" and "him".

Persona 4 Arena
It was recently announced that Yukari will be a playable character in the sequel to Persona 4 Arena. Like in Persona 3, Yukari uses her archery skills making her a solid spacing character.

Battle Quotes

 * "Io!" (Summoning Persona: Io)
 * "Isis!" (Summoning Persona: Isis)
 * "I swear on my life!" (Exploiting weakness: Isis)
 * "I can do it." (Summoning Persona)
 * "Gotta be brave." (Summoning Persona for the first time)
 * "How do you like the new me?" (Exploiting weakness: Io)
 * "Help me!" (Using Persona skills)
 * "I'll show you my true power!" (Using Persona Skills)
 * "I won't lose!" (Using Persona skills)
 * "Please hit!" (Attacking an enemy)
 * "I won't miss!" (Attack an enemy. Persona: Isis)
 * "Ugh ... lame!" (Attack misses)
 * "Too obvious!" (Dodges an attack. Persona: Isis)
 * "Here's our chance for an All-Out Attack!" (Prompting All-Out Attack)
 * "Lemme at 'em!" (During All-Out Attack)
 * "If you say so..." (Relenting from All-Out Attack)
 * "All right! Let's do it!" (Requesting Co-Op Attack)
 * "Good boy, Koro-chan!" (Cheering on Koromaru)
 * "Not bad, Junpei." (Cheering on Junpei)
 * "You're better than I thought." (Cheering on Junpei)
 * "Nice!" (Cheering on ally)
 * "One more!" (Cheering on MC)
 * "This one won't give up!" (Enemy survives an attack)
 * "I couldn't defeat it..." (Failed to defeat the enemy)
 * "Why you little!" (Recovering from Down)
 * "I can't lose!" (Recovering from Down)
 * "Hang in there!" (Healing an ally)
 * "Thanks!" (Being healed by an ally)
 * "Alright." (Changing battle tactics)
 * "Leave it to me!" (Changing battle tactics)
 * "I'm gonna try something else." (Attacks would not connect)
 * "That was a close one!" (Battle Won: Io)
 * "That was easy!" (Battle Won: Io)
 * "I've made up my mind. I won't lose!" (Battle Won: Isis)
 * "I'm not who I used to be." (Battle Won: Isis)
 * "Yes! My skill level has increased!" (Level up)
 * "Slash attacks won't work!" (Enemy resistant to Slash)
 * "Strike attacks are out!" (Enemy resistant to Strike)
 * "Pierce attacks aren't working!" (Enemy resistant to Pierce)
 * "Fire is useless!" (Enemy resistant to Fire)
 * "There's no point using ice attacks!" (Enemy resistant to Ice)
 * "Wind attacks aren't working!" (Enemy resistant to Wind)
 * "Electricity attacks are a waste of time!" (Enemy resistant to Electricity)
 * "Light has no effect?!" (Enemy resistant to Light)
 * "Darkness attacks don't seem to be working!" (Enemy resistant to Darkness)
 * "What?! Almighty attacks won't work?!" (Enemy resistant to Almighty)
 * "That was close!" (Dodging an attack)
 * "N-No! It's ... It's Death!" (Encountering The Reaper)
 * *shrieks* "It's Death!" (Encountering The Reaper)
 * "Yeah, I'm willing to risk mine, too!" (Final Nyx battle)

Etymology
Yukari in Japanese can mean "affinity," which means a natural attraction to someone or something. This could symbolize how she is the first to open up to the protagonist, and feel a connection with him; it could also symbolize the fact that her Arcana of her Persona is the Lovers, which represents the social interaction and the establishment of relationships.

It can also mean "beautiful pear tree", likely due of her past home of Kyoto where Asian pear trees are common. During autumn, the leaves of the pear trees turn brown, thus she could be named for them because her hair is brown as well.

Trivia

 * Yukari appears as a palette swap for Chie Satonaka and Yukiko Amagi in Persona 4 Arena.
 * In Persona 4 Golden, if Chie Satonaka has the Gekkou Uniform equipped, she will mimic Yukari's victory pose after battles as well as say Yukari's lines.