Izanagi-no-Okami



Izanagi-no-Okami (イザナギノオオカミ) is the Ultimate Persona of the Protagonist of Persona 4. The name "Okami", which means "Great Deity", symbolizes Izanagi's true identity as the deity born of the seven divine generations in Japanese mythology.

Appearances

 * Persona 4: Ultimate Persona
 * Persona 4: The Animation 
 * Persona 4 Arena: Instant Kill
 * Persona 4 Golden: Ultimate Persona

Persona 4


Izanagi-no-Okami can only be accessed in the events of the True Ending, which can be unlocked provided if the Protagonist manages to choose the correct choices.

In the True Ending, the Protagonist realizes that Izanami is the true mastermind behind the bizarre murder cases, and ventures into her reality within the Midnight Channel, Yomotsu Hirasaka to put an end to her plans. Eventually facing Izanami, the Protagonist witnesses his comrades risking themselves to protect the Protagonist from succumbing from Izanami's Thousand Curses. Eventually falling to Izanami's curse as well, the Protagonist hears the voices of his friends, telling him to continue fighting on.

Accumulating the powers and bonds he forged, the Protagonist channels the powers of his Social Links to his initial Persona, Izanagi, transmogrifying Izanagi into his true form, Izanagi-no-Okami. Enduring all of Izanami's assaults, the Protagonist takes off his glasses, and ultimately summons Izanagi-no-Okami, ending Izanami with one powerful strike, Myriad Truths.

The Protagonist' actions of taking off his glasses prior summoning Izanagi-no-Okami may symbolize his resolution of ending Izanami's plans, as the Midnight Channel is what manifested from the fog of deceit within humanity's hearts, and the glasses are used to see through the fog in the Midnight Channel, taking off the glasses may symbolize the end of the fog, and thus the Protagonist does not need it to see the truth behind the fog. This is the presumed meaning of the lines "Yeah, naked truth lies only if you realize/ Appearing in nobody’s eyes till they sterilize" in Reach Out To The Truth

Unique from other Personas, Izanagi-no-Okami is the only Persona of The World Arcana, and while he is summoned in the final battle with Izanami-no-Okami, Izanagi-no-Okami can be summoned during a second cycle and only by achieving the game's True Ending in the previous cycle. However, as loading the data from the previous cycle technically resets the Protagonist' Lv. back to 1, Izanagi-no-Okami can only be summoned once the Protagonist re-trains back to Lv. 91. Also, as the World Arcana is a standalone Arcana which is not represented by any Social Links, Izanagi-no-Okami does not receive any bonus EXP upon being summoned. It should also be noted that Izanagi-no-Okami cannot be registered into the Persona Compendium nor fused with any other Persona.

Interestingly, while Izanami's fabricated Goddess form bears a resemblance towards Izanagi-no-Okami, having a white-ish color theme, her true form, Izanami-no-Okami takes the form of a rotting, death-ridden form, similar to the Japanese Mythology.

Persona 4 Arena
Izanagi-no-Okami, along with Palladion, returns as an Instant Kill. Similar to Pallas Athena, Izanagi transforms into Izanagi-no-Okami for Yu Narukami's fatal attack and then changes back. This raises the potential question of whether or not Izanagi-no-Okami was an actual transformation, or a temporary surge of power to defeat Izanami. Like Palladion, however, Izanagi-no-Okami cannot be accessed his host outside his Instant Kill, Myriad Truths.

Persona 4 Golden
Izanagi-no-Okami, much like in the original version of Persona 4, can be summoned by fusing 12 Personas, however this time the player can now grant Izanagi-no-Okami any skills learned by the Personas used in fusion.

Fusion Prerequisite
Unlike the Ultimate Personas of the protagonists from the previous series, Izanagi-no-Okami holds the most fusion prerequisite to summon. Apart from completing the True Ending event in the previous cycle, the Protagonist must also perform a Dodecagon Spread Fusion in the Velvet Room with specific Personas to summon Izanagi-no-Okami: The significance of the Personas used for this fusion can be fully seen in the Japanese version, where the first kana in their names spells the sentence イザナギノオオカミツクレ, Izanagi-no-ookami-tsukure, lit. "create Izanagi-no-Okami".

Persona 4
Unlike other Personas, Izanagi-no-Okami's skill set is permanently fixed, thus he cannot inherit any skills from his predecessor Personas. Also, as the World Arcana appears as a standalone Arcana which is not represented by any Social Links, Izanagi-no-Okami does not receive any bonus EXP upon being summoned, meaning the Protagonist must train Izanagi-no-Okami manually to learn new skills.

This however, has been slightly modified in Persona 4: Golden, where Izanagi-no-Okami can inherit skills from his predecessors such as Maziodyne, Mamudoon, Primal Force, etc. but, he still can't be saved to the compendium, unfortunately.

Trivia

 * In Japanese the skill 'Myriad Truths' is literally translated as 'Ten Thousand Words of Truths', and Izanami's skill 'Thousand Curses' is actually 'Thousand Words of Curses'. The two skills most likely parallel Izanami's curse and Izanagi's vow in the original Japanese myths, where Izanami swore to kill 1000 mortals a day and Izanagi countered by vowing to give life to 1500 mortals a day.
 * Surprisingly enough, while using cheats to get the full compendium in Persona 4, there are 5 extra slots in the compendium: 034, 0B4, 0B5, 02B (These four slots are in the Fool Arcana) and Izanagi-no-Okami. His slot is the very last one right after the Judgement Arcana, and it is labeled "World", he starts out at level 0 and he has his own info. Unfortunately, he still cannot be updated. Maybe it was intended for him to be registered normally but, was declined at the last minute.