Futaba Sakura

Futaba Sakura is a main character from Persona 5. She is different from the main crew of the Phantom Thieves because she is an agoraphobic who does not attend school and rarely, if ever, leaves her house.

Appearances

 * Persona 5: Major Character; Navigator; Hermit Confidant

Design
Futaba is a bespectacled girl with long bright orange hair. Her brown eyes also seem to have some faint purple tones in them, appearing mauve. She wears large black circular glasses, and she is always seen wearing big headphones. She seems to be very short, even compared to other girls.

Her default outfit consists of multiple layers; she wears an off-shoulder white top with a red blood-like pattern on her chest with five white asterisks (*****) which are reminiscent of a passport input system in the "blood," a black tank top underneath, a dark green jacket with a faux fur trimmed hood, black short shorts, black thigh highs and black knee-high boots. The green jacket apparently has A.F.K. on the back (for "away from keyboard"), although it is difficult to see because of Futaba's long hair.

Another outfit she wears is a black shirt with "JLMK!" (presumably "just let me know") over a white-and-black striped long sleeve shirt.

Her burglar costume consists of a skintight black bodysuit with fluorescent neon green glowing strips and matching black boots with neon green soles. Her mask is a pair of big black goggles with orange lenses. This outfit was inspired by sci-fi movies like Tron.

Personality
With a case of social anxiety bordering on agoraphobia, Futaba is strongly discomfited by going outside, instead choosing to assimilate to the hikikomori subculture which allows her to communicate with the world remotely via the internet. However, even then, Futaba still encounters hate, anger, negativity and vitriol online. When she does go outside, she tends to hides behind the protagonist so that she won't be seen in public, or wears masks which make it impossible to identify her. Her room acts as a sanctuary and a refuge from the chaos and noise of the outside world. She plays video games as a means of fantasy, and escapism, but even then, this activity is starting to grow mundane and repetitive to Futaba. Still, Futaba's past time of playing video games results in her peppering her dialogue with video game terms.

Futaba addresses Sojiro Sakura by given name directly, which given their adoptive relationship is considered disrespectful in the usual Japanese household. But Sojiro shows total tolerance of her impudence.

Having disconnected herself from humanity and the world beyond her apartment, Futaba is lonely, lives without passion and enthusiasm, suffers from suicidal depression, and questions the point in her living. When first encountered, Futaba is so consumed with self-loathing that she suppresses her desire to live, causing her Shadow Self to develop a much more helpful personality than average, one who only desires Futaba's happiness.

However, she begins to change after meeting the protagonist and the other Phantom Thieves, opening up to them more and becoming more relaxed around them. Once she's truly comfortable around others, she shows her childish side and likes teasing her friends, particularly Morgana and Yusuke.

Futaba has a knack for technology, and is obsessed with computers. She is also a skilled coder and hacker. This comes across in the design of her Persona, Necronomicon, which is a UFO, which she sits inside. Necronomicon could be symbolic of her "alienation" from everyone, as it is believed UFOs contain aliens who monitor humanity, yet rarely intervene, similar to how Futaba watches and interacts with humanity through a computer screen.

Futaba really enjoys eating food. She also likes cats, and when she realizes Morgana is a part of the Phantom Thieves, she begins teasing him regularly. She also seems to be a fan of the show Phoenix Ranger Featherman R as she collects figurines from it-and grows quite upset when they are fiddled with without her permission, as Yusuke Kitagawa discovers when allowed into her room during the Thieves' attempts to get around her social anxiety. While the resultant argument ends happily, this does cause Yusuke and her to get off on the wrong foot, and she is easily irritated by him.

Persona 5
Futaba is a genius in computing, programming and hacking. However, a car incident that cost her mother, Wakaba Isshiki, her life causes Futaba to become a shut-in. Her relatives who have an eye on Wakaba's legacy blame the prodigy programmer based on a forged "suicide note," particularly after agents of the Conspiracy used it to bully her and manipulate Wakaba's family, hoping to keep her research for themselves. This, combined with abuse from most of her guardians before Sojiro, in particular her uncle Youji Isshiki refused to treat her as even a person, not even allowing her to bathe or have a proper bed. This caused her to develop post-traumatic stress disorder and extreme social anxiety. She has not attended school ever since graduating middle school. By her age, she should have been a first year student in high school. Wakaba's close friend, Sojiro Sakura has adopted Futaba and changed her surname for a large sum of money. During her isolation she tried to use her hacking skills to learn about her mother's research and how it relates to her death only to find all of the information related to it to have disappeared completely which added stress to the situation.

By the time of the game, her depression has worsened into outright suicidal impulses, and a delusional subconscious belief that her death would bring Wakaba back to life. Her desire for her own death causes a Palace to form in which the Sphinx, the representation of her self-loathing and belief that her mother's spirit hates her, fights Shadow Futaba for control of her mind.

Futaba finds out that the protagonist and his friends are the Phantom Thieves by listening to their conversation in Cafe Leblanc through the bug she placed there. Knowing her own impulses and realizing she has to stop, Futaba sends a message to the protagonist under the alias Alibaba, asking him to steal her heart and in exchange she will help them deal with a group of hackers known as Medjed who are declaring war against the Phantom Thieves. However, when the protagonist demands more information, Futaba realizes that in order to steal her heart, they need to know more about her so Futaba cancels her request and promises she won't sell them out.

When the Medjed starts to get worse, the Phantom Thieves decide to ask for her help and after putting together the pieces of fact, Makoto correctly deduces that Alibaba is in fact Futaba herself. When visiting Sojiro's house, they find out she also lives there so they directly ask her about herself to get the keyword into the Palace. Since they do not force her to come out and allow her to communicate through chat, Futaba agrees to make the deal with them once more. She downloads the Metaverse Navigator application to her own phone, curious to see if she can enter her own palace.



She does so, encountering her Shadow and becoming her own Treasure in the process, and she is forced to face her own fear as her Shadow urges her to remember her mother's death. Remembering that her mother's death was unnatural and realizing she has been deluding herself, Futaba awakens her Persona power and helps the party defeat the cognitive existence of her mother that she created who claims she wishes that Futaba was never born. After the battle, the image of a benevolent Wakaba appears before Futaba and confesses her love for her daughter then disappears.

After the battle at her own Palace, Futaba holds her end of the bargain, hacking into Medjed's website to stop them from further bothering the Phantom Thieves. She finally comes out from her shell, starts to go outside by regularly visiting Cafe Leblanc, interacting with the protagonist and his friends and eventually joining the Phantom Thieves of Hearts to find the culprit truly responsible for her mother's death. She reveals she created the original Medjed identity and later gave her hacking scripts to a group of friends, but when counter-hacking the hostile Medjed she realizes that they do not use her distinct programs. From there, she deduces that someone else must have stolen their name. In addition, she reveals to the team that the nature of the way her mother's degenerating condition was before she died and that the physical notes were the only research that hadn't been destroyed and it is the only way for her to find the ones who forged the note that ruined her life.

If the player can't complete her Palace in time, the police come to arrest the protagonist with charges of extortion and suspicion of being a member of the Phantom Thieves. This scenario is a false recollection made by the protagonist during Sae Niijima's interrogation, due to his mind being addled by drugs he was forcefully administered by the police. Sae proceeds to leave the room to give the protagonist time to recover, at which point Goro Akechi takes the opportunity to assassinate him.

Confidant
Futaba's Confidant is automatically unlocked on August 31st. Maxing this Confidant makes Necronomicon evolve into Prometheus and unlocks the fusion of Ongyo-Ki.

Futaba's confidant revolves around her rehabilitating in the real world as years of social isolation has left her completely maladjusted and fulfilling a list of things which her mother made her do to help boost her social skills. As she slowly rehabilitates with the Protagonist, her journey leads her to reveal that even in her youth she has been bullied for her intelligence and only had one friend named Kana Agario who was the only one to actually try to talk with her. However, she would uncover the dark secret that her best friend was in an abusive environment and ultimately broke off contact with her as Futaba would lie about her current relationship with Kana. Futaba was then entrusted with the task of stealing her parent's hearts so she can live a normal life again. As they managed to change the hearts of Kana's parents, Futaba builds her resolve to return to school to be a student again. At that point the protagonist can choose to start a romantic relationship with her or not.

The item received by maxing Futaba's Confidant is a promise note, which can receive dungeon field information.

Battle Quotes

 * "Support's on the way!" (Recovering party's HP)
 * "I'll do something about this!" (Recovering party's SP)
 * "Go! Power up!" (Bestowing Matarukaja effect to entire party)
 * "This one! Defense up!" (Bestowing Marakukaja effect to entire party)
 * "Here I go! Speed up!" (Bestowing Masukukaja effect to entire party)
 * "Here come the buffs!" (Bestowing Thermopylae buff effect to entire party)
 * "Super move! Ultra Charge!" (Bestowing Concentrate and Charge to party)
 * "Look out!" (Initiating Final Guard to block an incoming attack)
 * "Nooo!" (Initiating Final Guard to block an incoming attack)
 * "I won't let you!" (Initiating Position Hack at the start of a battle)
 * "Everyone, are you OK? Focus on healing up!" (When 2 or more party members' HP is reduced to below 25% from an enemy skill)
 * "Joker,are you alright!?" (Protagonist's HP is reduced to below 25% from an enemy's skill)
 * "Joker's burning! That's going to keep hurting!" (When Protagonist is suffering from Burn)
 * "Joker's hungry! He's powered down!" (When Protagonist is suffering from Hunger)
 * "Joker got knocked down!" (When Protagonist's weakness is exploited or is struck by a critical hit)
 * "No... Hey, wake up! Please!" (Protagonist is incapacitated)
 * "Joker!? No... Answer me!" (When Protagonist is incapacitated)
 * "Joker, why!? This isn't happening..." (When Protagonist is incapacitated)
 * "Mona! AIM!" (When Morgana's attack or Skill misses)
 * "Mona's down! Ooohh, not good!" (When Morgana's weakness is exploited or is struck by a critical hit)
 * "Mona got knocked out! Someone give him some support!" (When Morgana is incapacitated)
 * "Skull fell down! Hang in there!" (When Ryuji's weakness is exploited or is struck by a critical hit)
 * "Skull's out! Someone help him!" (When Ryuji is incapacitated)
 * "Skull, what are you doing!?" (When Ryuji's attack or skill misses)
 * "Panther's on the ground! Are you OK?" (When Ann's weakness is exploited or is struck by a critical hit)
 * "Panther's down! She needs treatment!" (When Ann is incapacitated by an enemy's skill)
 * "And Panther dodges with grace!" (When Ann's evades an enemy's attack)
 * "Queen's on the ground! You can't fail now!" (When Makoto's weakness is exploited or is struck by a critical hit)
 * "Queen's in trouble! It looks bad!" (Makoto's HP is below 25%)
 * "Queen's been taken out! You gotta cover for her!" (When Makoto is incapacitated)
 * "All right, Queen!" (When Makoto's evades an enemy's attack)
 * "Crow, you gotta watch them!" (When Akechi's attack or skill misses)
 * "Crow's down! We need backup here!" (When Akechi is incapacitated by an enemy's skill)
 * "We've got casualties! This is bad!" (When more than one party member is incapacitated by a skill)
 * "Whoa, this Shadow looks strong!" (Encountering the Reaper)
 * "All-out Attack!" (Announcing All-Out Attack)
 * "They're done for!" (Announcing All-Out Attack)
 * "Beat 'em up!" (Announcing All-Out Attack)
 * "Time for a beatdown!" (Rush)
 * "OK, I'm looking for a way out!" (Attempting to escape from battle)
 * "Don't rush me! I'm trying to find you an escape route!" (Selecting "Escape" again)
 * "If you're gonna run, now's your chance!" (Party manages to escape from battle)
 * "Huh? Who're these kids...? Awww... Those little costumes look perfect! They're so cute! Can I take them home with-Wait... What!? Whoa... for real!? These power levels...! Watch out! Those two are... monsters!" (Battling Caroline and Justine at the beginning)
 * "And they're Persona-users too!? Who ARE these girls!?" (After the first turn against Caroline and Justine)

Trivia

 * Unlike the rest of the Phantom Thieves' primary heist targets, the calling card for Futaba does not specify a sin she has committed, even though many players assume Cavum (hollowness) of the Nine Deadly Sins which is absent in the game besides the opening movie. In the English translation, her sin is identified as sloth.
 * Futaba's name may be a reference to the (also known as 2chan), an imageboard in Japan that inspired the popular English-language imageboard 4chan. As a hikikomori, Futaba could be seen as representing Internet or otaku culture.
 * Her life issue is a bit similar to that of Nanako Dojima in which neither could overcome their mother's death during their initial encounter with the protagonists.
 * Futaba shares the same Ultimate Persona, Prometheus, with Baofu from Persona 2: Eternal Punishment whose Japanese voice actor,, also voiced Futaba's guardian, Sojiro Sakura.
 * The allusion to Baofu also extends to the fact that she performs computer hacking and wiretapping which are important to the main plots of both games.
 * Futaba's rank 10 Confidant ability "Final Guard" was originally named "Last Guardian" as seen in the fourth Japanese trailer of Persona 5.
 * Futaba's code name Oracle in the Western releases is likely taken from DC's, also known as Oracle, who uses computers as an informant and hacker for numerous DC heroes, most notably the Bat Family and the Birds of Prey.
 * Futaba can dress as Toby from Catherine.
 * Futaba's habit of crouching rather than sitting is reminiscent of Death Note's genius detective, L, with whom she shares the character tic.
 * In some of Futaba's dialogue she often says "Hey listen!" like Navi from The legend of Zelda, and her code name also hints this