Makoto Niijima

Makoto Niijima is a playable character from Persona 5. She is the younger sister of Sae Niijima.

Appearances

 * Persona 5: Playable Character; Priestess Cooperation

Design
Makoto has short brown hair in a bob cut with blunt bangs, a braided headband and red eyes. She wears her school’s uniform without the standard blazer and revealing the black and red pleated plaid skirt. It is worn with a long sleeve white shirt, a black halter vest, black tights, and brown ankle boots.

Her burglar outfit consists of a skintight black leather suit that is worn with a long black scarf, shoulder and knee pads with spikes, white gloves, and wears an iron mask.

Personality
Makoto is a perfectionist that has a strong sense of responsibility and would not yield to reality. Like her fellow Priestess counterparts Fuuka Yamagishi and Yukiko Amagi, Makoto is intelligent, honest and very hardworking. In truth, she is a very compassionate and understanding young lady who works hard to make sure everyone is accounted for. Despite her immensely serious and mature nature, she does have her hidden, humorous elements, such as being frightened hearing ghost stories. When the Thieves introduce themselves properly to Futaba Sakura, Makoto grows increasingly nervous given how Futaba enjoys keeping her house dark and quiet and reminding Makoto of a horror movie. When Futaba suddenly appears and shrieks in surprise, Makoto panics and hides behind the protagonist, gibbering and begging for Sae to save her until she realizes Futaba isn't a ghost. Futaba herself finds this hilarious upon realizing how stoic Makoto is normally, and repeatedly teases her about her phobia of horror movies throughout the game. As quickly discovered when she becomes a Phantom Thief, Makoto has a great deal of suppressed anger which leaks out during her fights, unleashing a very brutal method of fighting (and much to the dismay of the team, driving).

Persona 5
Makoto is a third year honor student and the president of the student council in Syujin High School. After their volley ball coach, Suguru Kamoshida's confession and arrest, she is asked by the principal to investigate the possibility that the Phantom Thieves of Hearts are students from their school. She accepts the request and is quick to deduce that the protagonist and the others are the Phantom Thieves and starts to approach them. Anne Takamaki, in particular, doesn't like her presence due to a rumor that says Makoto knew about Kamoshida's true nature but kept quiet about it like everyone else to keep her image as "a good student", a thought that Anne bitterly tells to Makoto, which disturbs her.

She begins to tail them for a while until she finally gets the proof of them being the Phantom Thieves by recording Ryuji's declaration regarding their job. However, she decides not to give this proof to the principal and instead demands the Phantom Thieves to prove their justice by changing the heart of an unknown Yakuza that has been extorting some students at their school. If they can prove their justice is right, she won't expose their identities.

The next time she's checking on the Phantom Thieves' progress, Anne, Ryuji, and Yusuke points out how useless she is for not doing anything that can help them, something that greatly upsets Makoto after being told the same thing before by her sister and remembers Goro's words about the rumor that is surrounding her. To prove she's not a kind of person they thinks she is, Makoto purposely acts as bait into the Yakuza so that the  Phantom Thieves of Hearts  can follow behind. Once there, the Yakuza Junya Kaneshiro takes photos of the group for blackmail material than charges them for the photos as well as a special gift he had purchased for an escort or else. The group must change his mind before a certain deadline or risk losing everything.

Makoto apologizes for her rash action and tries think for a way to pay Kaneshiro, but Morgana then suggests to make her an ally by bringing her along to Kaneshiro's Palace. There, Makoto is confronted by Shadow Kaneshiro who taunts her by revealing his plan to extort her sister. Angered and disgusted by Kaneshiro, Makoto awakens her Persona power and decides to join the Phantom Thieves. After changing Kaneshiro's heart, she receives call from Kaneshiro who tells her he has deleted the photos and is going to turn himself in, relieving Makoto and the others. She then reports to the principal that she concludes her investigation of the Phantom Thieves by simply telling him that the Phantom Thieves are justice and they don't have any proof that the Thieves are in their school, much to the principal's dismay.

If the player can't complete her dungeon in time, the police comes to arrest the protagonist, claiming they have found a drugged and brutalized schoolgirl in one of Kaneshiro's nightclubs, deliriously muttering his name. 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.

Cooperation
Makoto's Cooperation can begin as soon as the player has finished Kaneshiro Bank.

Trivia

 * Makoto has been shown using the skill Frei, a Nuclear skill that has not appeared in the franchise since Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
 * Queen in the Japanese official site is given the title of "Phantom Thieves' Tactician", implying her wisdom.
 * Makoto is the only party member to have two summoning poses. The first is when she has Johanna, where she "rides" her Persona, while her second is with Anat, which unlike Johanna has a humanoid form.
 * Makoto's pose on the box art of 5 is similar to Mitsuru Kirijo's pose on the box art of Persona 3. Interestingly, both characters are also the Student Council President at their respective schools.