Yosukesaurus

Yosukesaurus is a boss and a major character in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.

Appearances

 * Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth: Major Character, Boss

Design
Yosukesaurus is a Herbivore Dinosaur that has fur with deep blue and grey patterns on it. Its build is similar to the other herbivore dinosaurs, having a large body, narrow arms and stubby legs. His head is the same as Yosuke Hanamura's.

When he transforms to attack the party, Yosukesaurus seems to take more carnivore dinosaur traits, having a sleek build, and he resembles Jiraiya, wearing a red scarf, having a pair of long horns, and camouflage patterns on his body. In this form, he also has a black head with a white band on the center.

Personality
Unlike the other Herbivore Dinosaurs who act as a hivemind and act completely based on mockery and cowardice, Yosukesaurus is friendly and cheerful, and is willing to befriend humans. However, his personality is much unlike the real Yosuke, as he is noted for having an ambition, but felt completely powerless and alienated as the rules of his world prevent him from making any decisions that can rally the other Herbivore Dinosaurs into overturning their oppressors. Therefore, most of the time he is simply forced to do anything that others do.

When the other Herbivore Dinosaurs force him to attack the party, he goes berserk, clutching his head constantly and going onto a rampage against them. Once the party beats him back to his senses, he is made sane again and had more influence around his surroundings, allowing him to rally his Herbivore Dinosaur friends from their cowardice and help the party repel the carnivorous dinosaur.

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth
Yosukesaurus is the outcast dinosaur in the movie Junessic Land. The party first encounters him eating grass, in which he was attacked by a bunch of shadows while the rest left him and fled. They mistake the dinosaur for the real Yosuke, but he does not understand what humans are and is in fact a completely different entity. He befriends the party and is willing to assist them to trap and outsmart carnivorous dinosaurs.

The other Herbivore Dinosaurs do not respect him and just treated him as an outcast. Every time he makes a decision, it is instantly rejected by the other dinosaurs who simply acted based on how many among them agree with things. He wanted to tell the others to actively overthrow their oppressors, but the rules of this world does not allow him to do such a thing. After the party successfully traps the carnivore dinosaur in an electric cage, he was forced to vote for lynching the party from reality, kicking them back to the cinema despite it was against his will, because he cannot reject the decisions of others just by himself.

Eventually despite the party's assistance, the other dinosaurs began to view humans as threats and wants to remove them. Yosukesaurus was chosen to confront the party in the farthest clearing of the movie reality despite he did not want to. Being thrown into despair by his "friends," he goes berserk and transforms into a carnivorous dinosaur resembling Jiraiya to attack the party, even calling the other Herbivore Dinosaurs for help. Yosukesaurus and the other Dinosaurs were defeated and they apologize to the party for their actions, but at this time the carnivore dinosaur F.O.E reaches the farthest clearing. Yosukesaurus confronts the carnivore dinosaur alone but is swiftly defeated. However, at the same time the other Herbivore Dinosaurs began to listen to him and they teamed up to severely damage the carnivorous dinosaur enough for the party to force it to flee. Yosukesaurus and the other dinosaurs now officially agree to build actual friendships instead of simply acting as a hivemind.

It was later revealed that Yosukesaurus is a cognitive copy of the primary school Hikari that appeared in Junessic Land. During her secondary school era, she helped a student known as Miyuki and helped her clean her desk when the bullies drawn insults and dumped trash on top of it. Hikari asked her out to watch a dinosaur movie which is about herbivore dinosaurs uniting their strength to rescue their friends from their carnivorous dinosaur oppressors. She agreed but the other girls refused and on the next day Hikari herself became a target for the bullying. Initially her friends only wanted to kick Miyuki because they did not want to be involved with the bullies in the school, but Hikari did not want anyone to be kicked out and wanted each other to continue to be friends. However, her friends instead responded by kicking her out and Miyuki was forced to join in against her will, because the other friends have the number advantage. They considered her an outcast for not agreeing with the hivemind and the traumatic events resulted in Hikari barely having any friends for the remainder of her student life.

Just like the secondary school Hikari, Yosukesaurus wanted to protect his friends from their oppressors, but ended up becoming alienated and outcast by them due to their selfish self-preservative instincts and the resulting inability to rally an ignorant mass, making him a target for both his oppressors and his "friends," with the latter group driving him into despair by threatening to kick him out of their group.

Yosuke's form was simply an actor for the movie, so the cognition was able to take on a completely different form from its host, only inheriting her behavior and thoughts.

Near confronting the true mastermind of the game, a projection of Yosukesaurus is required to be defeated and replaced with Hikari's film of positivity. Unlike in the main fight, projection Yosukesaurus doesn't call any help.

Right before the final battle against the mastermind, the Herbivore Dinosaurs had built a real friendship with Yosukesaurus and they appear to actually respect him as a friend.

When the Investigation Team return to reality and Junessic Land begins to broadcast in the Dojima Residence TV, Yosukesaurus is implied to appear in the movie. However, none of the P4 cast recognized him, as their memories of the adventure are wiped out.

Trivia

 * Yosukesaurus represents the Yosuke during the beginning of Persona 4, who was treated as an outcast by Inaba's older citizens due to him being the son of Junes's branch manager. Junes was the multi-branch shopping mall that resulted in the closure of many stores in the Central Shopping District, which caused the store owners in the district to resent Yosuke, even though he had involvement in the closure of their stores. This similarity to Hikari's own feelings of alienation made him an ideal stand-in for Hikari herself during middle school, as she felt resented for no good reason apart from her middle school friends' egotism.