Hikari

Hikari is a major character in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.

Appearances

 * Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth: Major Character
 * Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth Roundabout Special

Design
Hikari is a young woman with short, white hair and orange eyes. She wears a black school uniform skirt with a large ribbon bow on her chest and orange stripes by the skirt, a white hat with a movie reel hair accessory, and carries a yellow megaphone. However, she doesn't seem to actually use her megaphone until she fully rehabilitates. She also has black leggings.

Her primary school self appears as a short, young girl with a pair of short twin tails, and wears an orange dress with a white uniform on the inside.

Her secondary school self appears just like her present self, but she wears a headband and a blue girl's only secondary school uniform with 4 buttons on the chest. She wears a red ribbon bow on her neck and a black skirt.

Her high school self appears just like her real self, but lacks the hat that the real person wears.

Personality
Hikari is a young woman that, at the start of the game suffers from extreme depression and self-esteem issues due to her bad past. While not directly stated to be suicidal, she has self-destructive tendencies and wished that anything that would make her stand out from others to be gone. She was not strong enough to cope with the hardships of life, which is why Nagi took her into her reality as a refuge from the outside world. When first encountered she does not talk much and always stays on Nagi's side because she does not trust anyone other than her, only whispering clues to Nagi about the whereabouts of the P5 hero's teammates. Usually, she just lowers her head with her eyes shut, which she does less frequently as the story advances.

In fact before the Persona users led by the Phantom Thieves of Hearts forced a change of heart on her, she was so consumed by her past trauma, self-loathing and depression to the point that she was barely functioning as a person, disconnecting herself from reality inside her room, then inside the Cinema and displaying a complete lack of enthusiasm to live. The constant drowning in self-destruction also warps her perception towards others, resulting in her inability to differ what is actually harmful to her and what actually isn't. This causes her to develop paranoia towards her father's supposed goodwill that results in the creation of Doe, whom she perceives as a terrifying figure that she could not even get close to, and believing that Nagi is a comforting figure, not knowing that she is actually delusional and is inversely fueling her negative impulses.

As each movie is cleared, she becomes more confident and slowly opens up to the party. After they gave the first movie an appropriate ending, she regains the ability to communicate in complete sentences and after doing the same to the second one, she could respond to humorous situations with a giggle, such as when Caroline calls Kanji a gorilla. When she fully rehabilitates, she even reveals her true dream of becoming a movie director to them. She is also kind towards the party and often blushes when she is excited. Eventually after her resolve against Doe, she becomes a party member and can participate in support towards the party. The interaction with the united Persona users results in her strengthening her resolve and regaining confidence around people.

When Nagi drops off her guise and reveals her true intentions, Hikari expresses a clear desire to get her wishes of becoming a free person once again and escape from the cinema world heard by the almighty ruler of the collective unconsciousness, with the bonds of her friends agreeing in unison to overthrow her false peace. Her wish eventually gets heard after the climax of the party's final confrontation against her former caretaker, prompting her to surrender and release everyone inside her domain.

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth
When Hikari was in primary school, her school had a class rabbit. However, one day the rabbit fell ill due to food poisoning. Hikari and two other students were responsible for feeding it, but none dare say a word against their teacher. In reality, the food that the teacher gave to the rabbit was poisonous for it. Hikari spoke against the teacher by saying that she did not commit the crime and she only warned them that the food was poisonous. Her teacher did not accept any explanation to the events and simply demanded an apology, and all of the students put the blame on Hikari in unison because they did not want to speak against their teacher. Eventually, they pressurized Hikari to comply and apologize, which she begrudgingly does, resulting in the breaking of her viewing of teachers being heroes, an impression that she got from a movie she watched.

When she got home that day, her father asked if she wants to play "hero," and she responds by saying that she has lost interest in doing so and would watch movies instead, so her father promised her to watch one together that Sunday even though he would feel tired from his work, because seeing her makes him feel all the better. At this period, her father had inspired her goal to become a film director.

At secondary school, Hikari befriended a girl known as Miyuki and helped her clean her desk because insults were drawn and trash were put onto them by bullies in the class. She asked her out to watch a dinosaur movie where a group of herbivore dinosaurs team up to use their power to overthrow the oppressing carnivorous dinosaurs. She accepts, but the rest of the girls that were her friends refuse. At the next day the bullies began to target her and she had her desk drawn with insults and litter being thrown on it, and the girls kicked Hikari out of their friend group because she does not share an opinion as them and they did not want to get dragged by her into being bullied. Miyuki was reluctant to betray Hikari at first, but forcefully did so due to peer pressure. This caused her to barely have any friends in her secondary school and she also becomes triggered when someone brings up the idea of having friends.

When she went back home that day, her father filmed her as part of a documentary and she wondered why he was doing so. He explained that she was the protagonist of her life and he wanted to make a documentary about it, but she began to express self-loathing about how she was an outcast. However, her father gave her encouraging words and said that she was a special person and should be kept unique as she was. In return, she expresses her wish to become a film director to him. Due to her interest in movies, her lifelong dream is to become a film director, which is unique among the people around her age. The dream was inspired by her father who was a film director himself, and he was the only person who actually cared about Hikari's wishes. However, as she has to regularly participate in film production alongside her father, she often comes home late. Her uncle and aunt saw this and berated her, saying that she should instead be studying and working like a normal person. They detested Hikari's wishes to be unique among other people around her age and believed that her father was spoiling her, and her uncle even tried to snatch the camera that her father gave to her. She began to believe that her wish to become unique from other people is an error afterwards.

Years of dehumanization combined results in Hikari having post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression, self-esteem issues and a desire to commit personality suicide, or the removal of all traits that would make her unique from others. She constantly locked herself in her room and isolated herself from reality due to being drowned in self-destructive desires and grief. As her tormentors usually asked why she was like that when denying her, she also became particularly triggered when someone uses that phrase. She began to develop delusions about her father after he used the traumatizing words on her; In reality, he had no ill-intent and simply wanted her to get out of her room to receive the notebook he bought for her (Which is actually the notebook that the player uses to map Labyrinths in this game) and kindly asked why she locked herself out, but she interpreted that as him questioning her as a deviant, causing her to believe that he was a fearsome figure that hates her because she had became an embarrassment for him.

Sensing the weakness in her heart, Nagi put her into her domain in the collective unconsciousness, which appears as a twisted street filled with cinemas. She shut Hikari in one of the cinemas in her domain and allowed her to take refuge from the hardships of reality, in the price of her personal freedom and putting an end to her thoughts. The cinema would broadcast realities formed from her heart, effectively turning the movie world into something close to her Palace, but is not an actual one. All of these movies will initially only end badly, keeping her in the emotional spiral that prevented her from even considering leaving.

This changed when her twisted cognition also created Doe, a cognitive copy of her father created from the only memories she wanted to keep, who changed three of the movies into forms meant to resolve her amnesia and make her confront her past, playing them over and over again in an attempt to break through her shell. Inside the cinema, Hikari would only watch these distorted movies alongside Nagi. Due to lack of self esteem, she always stands alongside Nagi, believing that she was the only person that she could trust. It is the Persona user's goal to change the ending of each movie into a good one that supported her desire to be unique again and force a change in Hikari's heart along with it so she could escape the cinema.

One day, when the Phantom Thieves of Hearts were exploring Mementos, the Morgana van loses control and ends up in one of the movie realities, the movie Kamoshidaman. After they escape with the price of an F.O.E kidnapping Makoto Niijima and Haru Okumura, they enter her cinema and Hikari and Nagi suddenly emerge from the front seat, claiming that they had watched the Thieves escape. Hikari was too shy to speak with the Thieves directly, but she has an idea on what is going on and whispers to Nagi about the whereabouts of the lost comrades. Nagi claims that Hikari was the last customer inside the cinema as all of the other visitors in it vanished and strange locks were put on the Cinema's exit when Doe appeared inside it, causing the two to be trapped. As Nagi is the Cinema's manager, she took the duty to protect her. However, she and Nagi has no idea who the Phantom Thieves are due to the women locking themselves from all electronic communication for a long time, and when confronted with the whereabouts of the P3P heroine, she does not have an idea about that person.

For each movie cleared, Hikari slowly opens up to the persona users and congratulates them for coming back safely. At one point after clearing A.I.G.I.S., she was aware of Ribbon's self-destructive, self-loathing tendencies and seeming self sacrifice to destroy her Mother Computer oppressor, and used it to express her intentions of discarding her self. In reality, Ribbon survived the sacrifice thanks to Aigis and Futaba Sakura's efforts and she begins to recognize the party as friends. Doe then kidnaps Hikari and puts her into the fourth movie ???, whose true name is in covered in black marker.

In the labyrinth she faces the three major traumas that form her movies in the cinema world and finally the delusions that everyone including her father was against her while he simply asked Hikari to stop locking herself out in her room out of goodwill, which takes the form of musical stages. The repressed memories of her tormentors are denied and confronted, then turn into Shadows that attack the party. In reality, she was not kidnapped by Doe, but she followed him into the labyrinth where she learns to overcome herself.

When the party reaches the depths of the movie, Doe reveals his intentions to keep Hikari in the Cinema forever, as her will was too weak to go out to reality. Hikari denies this wish and Doe goes berserk and attacks the party. In the battle Doe uses a dangerous attack that triple binds the entire party but Hikari joins the combat and she can remove binds from a party member. Doe was hugged by Hikari after his defeat and transforms into her father, then vanishes into light and grants her the key to escape the cinema, revealing himself as a cognitive copy created from her distorted negative desires and drowning her in tears as she repents her erroneous perception towards her father. She receives a change of heart and confesses all of her distorted grief and negative thoughts to the Persona users and was able to fully rehabilitate with their help and get out of the depression, allowing her to gain the will to escape the cinema. The title of ??? is then uncovered, revealing it is simply titled "Hikari."

Nagi then allows Hikari and the party escape the cinema after they clear the 4th movie, stating that she did not have a choice but to let them go. However, when the party opens the cinema gates, it reveals a twisted landscape and she drops off her guise, revealing herself as a god ruling over the collective unconsciousness known as Enlil, who trapped Hikari and other people in her domain in the collective unconsciousness because they were too weak to cope with the problems in the real world, and the only way to solve this is to have her and other weak people isolated from the suffering of reality, putting an end to their thoughts. Despite Enlil claims that they are strong enough and lets them leave the Cinema, the party does not approve with this and Hikari joins them in turning against her former caretaker, expressing a wish to free everyone else who fell victim to her delusional and amoral practices.

As Hikari successfully rehabilitates from her depression, she is now willing to socialize with the party and acts as a combat support. She expresses her true wishes of becoming a film director and exchanges opinions with the party. When Enlil kicks the party back into the cinema lobby as a last warning, she and the other party members consider themselves as a Phantom Thieves of Hearts and try to "steal" Enlil's heart. They also found 4 of the reel hairs that contains Hikari's movie of positivity and devises a plan to replace Enlil's film of negativity with them, fighting a projection of the 4 former bosses before the projections can be replaced. They successfully replace the projections and the movie world is purified, with Kamoshidaman fighting for real justice, the Herbivore Dinosaurs actually respecting Yosukesaurus, Ribbon teaching a group of colored robots to love flowers, and the high school Hikari making Doe disappear by expressing her desire to get out of the cinema.

The party then confronts the enraged Enlil. In the middle of the fight, Hikari announces her wish to free the weak from her reality. Enlil is angered by the "betrayal" and transforms into a godly, muscular eagle-like being, and she easily removes the entire party despite their efforts in beating her, leaving Hikari alone to face the almighty administrator. Despite the navigators told her to run, she refuses and confronts Enlil alone. Enlil first chastises her, then stood completely still. After three turns, she manages to summon the four protagonists back thanks to her determination to escape the cinema and the protagonists unleash one last combo attack to defeat Enlil, forcing her to surrender. Enlil admits defeat as Hikari rallied the voices of the people to turn against her and transforms back into the black haired Nagi and vanishing into light, but not before telling Hikari again that she is a ruler of the collective unconsciousness and she will return as long as humanity wishes for her to. This destroys Enlil's domain and the people who were trapped in it were freed and returned to their real world.

As Hikari realizes that she would be parting from her first actual friends, she is drown in tears and wants to give her notebook as a farewell gift to the party, but they returned it back to her because it was her precious memories and they said without it her film would not be complete. She then parts with the persona users and leaves from the exit of the cinema back into her reality.

Now returning into reality, she wakes up as if she had a dream and saw her father in the living room. She announces her plans to make a film about her personal growth and her father approves. During the next day, both versions of the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad and the Investigation Team receives movie CDs from an unknown source, with the Investigation Team version being implied to be Junessic Land, and both versions of S.E.E.S. receive A.I.G.I.S..

After the credits roll, the Phantom Thieves save for Goro Akechi receive an invitation to a film festival for high school students. They attend, and Hikari steps from her seat into the dais of the auditorium where she announces a movie about her growth. This implies that Hikari came from the same reality as the Persona 5 cast.

Etymology
"Hikari" literally translates to "Light" in Japanese. This might actually a double meaning that can function as an irony that alludes to her severe depression and she is in fact the key for the Persona users to defeat Enlil and also acts as a light that allows others who were trapped inside her domain to escape it.

Trivia

 * Hikari is similar to Futaba Sakura, as both initially shut themselves out from reality due to trauma, were initially completely incapable of socializing with others, used to have self-destructive tendencies, delusions that their beloved parents were acting against them and their relatives dehumanized them and were a part of their trauma. The cognitive copy of their parents that they both loved and developed delusions with also acted as bosses at the fourth stage of their respective games. They make a full rehabilitation and socialize with the party after they clear out their distorted negative desires. Both were also known to have unusual talents for people during their age, with Hikari being film production and Futaba being computers and technology.
 * The quote seen at the start of the game is "We do not lose our way through ignorance but through self-confidence" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This ties to how Hikari became incredibly agitated when someone asks her why she was like that, because all of her tormentors used that phrase when they dehumanized her, causing her to believe that her father was dehumanizing her too when he asked her to get out of her confines by asking why she was like that, despite he meant nothing other than telling her to get out to obtain the notebook he bought for her, which caused her to fall into complete despair even though he did so out of goodwill.
 * Hikari's condition is the exact opposite of Rei's; While Rei is a dead person with a living spirit, Hikari can be considered a living person with a "dead" spirit.
 * Hikari is one of the few characters associated with a player's combat party that lack a Shadow Self in-game, especially after Persona 3. Her Shadow Self is never mentioned nor does it appear anywhere in the game, while most other characters past this point receive Shadow Selves in one way or another, such as the fake versions of S.E.E.S. and the Persona 2 cast who were created via unnatural means, natural shadow selves such as Best Friend and the Shadow Selves of the Investigation Team that are born from repressed negative thoughts, and the Personas of the Phantom Thieves who are basically their Shadow Selves fused with their host.
 * It should be noted that the younger versions of Hikari seen in ??? do not qualify as Shadow Selves or Shadows of any sort, as they lack any traits that Shadow Selves have such as mocking their hosts or yellow eyes, and in fact, some of their actions are the reverse of, or are not at all Shadow Self behavior, such as accepting their host's denial towards them, a lack of hostility towards the party and their host and acting in the exact same way as their host would without any alterations or exaggerations. Therefore, they are more closer to recordings or cognitive copies built by the real Hikari's memories.
 * The closest thing to a Shadow Self Hikari has is Doe, who like Shadow Futaba embodies partially positive repressed emotions like her admiration for her father and desire to be accepted as a unique person, but also represents negative desires and paranoia much like the Wakaba Sphinx (Another cognition that has Shadow Self like traits), such as her toxic escapism from pain and the delusional belief that her father is embarrassed by her existence.
 * While not directly stated to be a Palace owner, the movie world Hikari's heart creates possesses traits commonly seen in actual Palaces, such as being created by the memories and the distorted desires of its host and the existence of cognitive existences of people related to her inside it. This grows especially acute in ???, which is the movie least influenced by other people and has no "actors" (Cognitions resembling people Hikari does not actually know), with the musical stages showing the three traumas in her life that resulted in her withdrawal from humanity and complete breakdown. Also, her reaction after ??? is cleared is similar to those of Palace owners who got their treasures stolen.