Yukiko Amagi

Yukiko Amagi is a character from Persona 4. An elegant young woman, she is well-known as the heiress of her family's inn, the Amagi Inn.

Appearance

 * Persona 4: Playable Character
 * Persona 3 Portable: Non-playable Character
 * Persona 4 Manga
 * Persona 4 The Animation: Priestess Arcana
 * Persona 4 Golden: Playable Character
 * Persona 4 Arena: Playable Character

Design
Yukiko is young, beautiful student with long, straight black hair, a red headband, and grey eyes. In battle, she wears red glasses. As with most playable characters in the game, Yukiko wears her Yasogami High uniform along with a red sweater and black opaque tights. On summer school days, she appears virtually the same, save for that her sweater is now smaller and unbuttoned. On regular holidays, she wears a red dress and flame scarf, along with black, knee high-boots, while on summer holidays, she appears in a black shirt with puffy sleeves, and a short white skirt. At the summer festival, she wears a violet yukata with a pink obi.

In Persona 3 Portable (two years before the events of Persona 4), she makes a brief appearance where she dons a black seifuku uniform, and has short hair with a white headband.

When she was a child, from her appearance in the anime, Yukiko had braided pigtails, and wore a bright pink dress. She appears the same in the manga, albeit her hair is short.

In Persona 4 Golden during winter schooldays, she wears a beige coat with a red scarf, and appears in a white snowsuit on the ski trip. In the epilogue, she wears her hair up in a neat bun, along with a wears a snow white dress with a sky blue cardigan, and white sandals.

Personality
Yukiko is a rich young woman who is popular with boys and girls alike. Often scoring the best during exams, she is very intelligent and often repeats the material with Chie, her best friend. As a smart, beautiful, feminine, and fair-skinned teenager, she has attracted many male characters in Inaba, but she doesn't seem to be comfortable when someone mentions her beauty. At first, Yukiko is very introverted, but she gets livelier after she is rescued from the Midnight Channel.

A notable running gag is that she tends to have very easy laughing fits from the slightest jokes, though there are later times where even Teddie of all people fails to make her embrace a joke.

Persona 3 Portable
Yukiko is in her final year of middle school. She meets with the female protagonist and Rio Iwasaki while they are training in Inaba.

Persona 4
Yukiko's family runs a famous hot spring inn, the Amagi Inn in the town of Yasoinaba, often mentioned in the news as "the treasure of Yasoinaba." Yukiko is expected to succeed the family business by becoming the manager of the inn, and is always busy training herself. Due to this, Yukiko is often oblivious towards romantic feelings, and tends to misinterpret others' conversations.
 * Initial Persona: Konohana Sakuya
 * Ultimate Persona: Amaterasu or Sume-Omikami
 * Arcana: Priestess

Despite her apparent willingness to inherit the inn, Yukiko is deep down falling under stress as a result of being branded the next owner of the inn. Because of her obligation she often goes home quickly after school is over and may even skip classes. During an interview, Yukiko wears a pink kimono. That night, an image of her wearing that kimono is shown on the Midnight Channel. Worried about her the next day, Chie tries to contact Yukiko's cell phone, as she hasn't showed up in school. The contact fails, and Chie instead receives Yukiko's voicemail. Yosuke would later suggest Chie to call the Amagi Inn, where Yukiko finally responds. She explains that she is busy catering at the Inn, and thus had to skip school.

Still worried, Yosuke suggests that the protagonist should tune into the Midnight Channel tonight as well. That night, a show called "Princess Yukiko's Search for Prince Charming" is shown on the Midnight Channel, where Yukiko dresses up as a princess on a journey to "score" with a "hot stud", or Prince Charming. As Yukiko's behavior in the TV was rather bizarre and unlike how she would normally act, Yosuke calls the protagonist and suggests that they meet up in the Junes Food Court the next morning. There, Yosuke, Chie, and the protagonist decide to venture into the Midnight Channel once again.

Inside the Midnight Channel, the protagonist, Yosuke, and Chie manage to locate Yukiko in a romanesque castle with the help of Teddie. The trio eventually finds Yukiko, along with another 'Yukiko'. The other 'Yukiko' expresses her disgust with inheriting the inn, and playfully confesses to the protagonist, Yosuke, and Chie. Calling Chie her Prince Charming, the other 'Yukiko' asks her Prince Charming to take her somewhere far, far away to escape her fate of inheriting the Amagi Inn. Confused and shocked, Yukiko begs the other 'Yukiko' to stop. Ignoring Yukiko's pleas, the other 'Yukiko' taunts Yukiko, asking why she would want her to stop confessing her true feelings. The other 'Yukiko' exclaims that she is Yukiko, and is merely expressing her thoughts. Yukiko denies the other 'Yukiko' s claims, and tells her that she is not her. Fueled by Yukiko's denial, the other 'Yukiko' transforms into a shadow and attacks the party.

Her shadow takes the form of a large bird with Yukiko's face and hair, sitting in a cage with a shadow dressed like the jack of cards below. This represents her feelings of entrapment from inheriting the inn and her desire to be rescued from that fate by a 'dashing prince' since she feels too weak to do so herself.

The trio eventually manage to fend off the shadow, and with Yukiko eventually willing to face herself, the shadow transforms into Konohana Sakuya, becoming Yukiko's Persona. After her kidnapping and subsequent rescuing, Yukiko becomes a much livelier person, and the party learns about her habit of breaking into sudden fits of laughter (usually after hearing a terrible joke or pun), which often surprises her peers. She also reveals a competitive side when Rise Kujikawa taunts her and Chie about making omelettes for Nanako Dojima.

Yukiko creates the Priestess Arcana Social Link with the protagonist, and through the protagonist's interactions with her, Yukiko expresses how she cannot live a normal teenager's life due to her status as the Amagi heir, and her wish to leave Yasoinaba instead of inheriting the Inn. She decides to become an interior decorator after her graduation. During their interactions, however, Yukiko also reveals that she is constantly being pestered by tabloid reporters after the murder of Mayumi Yamano, the first murder victim and TV announcer, who lived in her Inn before being murdered.

Yukiko also confesses her horrible cooking skills, and is worried that she would not be able to take care of herself after leaving the town. She asks the protagonist to sample her food during their interactions. Yukiko later enlists cook of Amagi Inn to teach her cooking, under the excuse of doing it for a boy. As the protagonist interacts with Yukiko, Yukiko slowly loses her urge to leave the town. She eventually realizes how much she loves the Inn after being harassed by the tabloid reporters, who want to publish a story that would tarnish the Inn's reputation. Finally having had enough, Yukiko angrily threatens them away.

By the end of the Social Link, Yukiko decides not to leave Yasoinaba, but to inherit the Inn and continue her family's legacy. Having finally found her resolution, Yukiko's Persona, Konohana Sakuya transfigures into Amaterasu.

Should the protagonist chooses to establish a lovers relationship with Yukiko and accepts her invitation in Dec 24, the protagonist bakes Yukiko a Christmas Cake, and she then gives him a Leather Keyring that guards against Fire-elemental attacks. Yukiko will also ask the protagonist if she can stay over for the night, saying that she told her parents that she is staying in Chie's house for the night.

In the events of the Chariot Arcana Social Link, Chie reveals that she first met Yukiko during their childhood. The day that they met, Yukiko ran away from home with a dog. According to Chie, Yukiko was expressionless as a child, and reveals that Yukiko ran away from home because her family did not allow her to take in the stray dog. Feeling sympathetic towards Yukiko, Chie tries to make Yukiko smile, and the two eventually become best friends. Chie later reveals that the dog became her pet.

Yukiko's and Chie's cooking skills have become a recurring joke throughout the story. During the protagonist and Yosuke's first camping trip, the girls attempted to cook dinner, which ended horribly. Yosuke would continue to refer to the curry they cooked during the camping trip and all of their future cooking as "Mystery Food X".

Yukiko's initial Persona is Konohana Sakuya of the Priestess Arcana, which resembles a Tokusatsu heroine and is almost completely pink in color. Interestingly enough, while Chie's Persona, Tomoe Gozen has long hair like Yukiko's, Konohana Sakuya has short hair like Chie's. Konohana Sakuya is skilled with healing and fire spells (which is ironic, considering the kanji for her given name means "snow child", although her resentment for the name is mentioned in passing).

Amaterasu of the Priestess Arcana resembles a faceless woman who looks like she is made of light, wielding a katana and its sheath and wearing an ornamental accessory that surrounds her body, making her look like she has wings.

By leveling up the Priestess Arcana Social Link to Lv. 3, Yukiko will learn her distinctive follow-up attack, Fan Assault, where she performs a powerful attack with 100% critical rate and inflicts dizzy status on another active enemy, provided if the protagonist strikes down a target.

Persona 4 Manga
In the manga, Yukiko's Shadow is defeated by Chie's Persona and transforms into Konohana-Sakuya after Yukiko confronts her other self. She has an apparent crush on the protagonist.

Persona 4 The Animation
In the anime, Yukiko gets saved early on April 18. After she wakes up inside of a castle, she sees a empty birdcase and recollects the time she found a baby bird and took care it until it grows up, and then encounters her Shadow Self.

After her Shadow Self transformed, instead of falling unconscious, she gets trapped in a birdcage. During the battle, she pleads for Chie to run away, but she refused. She calls herself helpless, but Chie exclaims that isn't true. She says Yukiko is strong and can break free of that cage to soar, but Yukiko tearfully denies it. Back when she lost her pet bird, she wasn't heartbroken, but humiliated; she did forget to lock the cage, but this bird still had enough courage to open the gate and fly away on its own. She thinks she's horrible and a coward for wanting someone to free her. When Chie's words bring her back to her senses, Yukiko breaks free of the cage holding her captive, and embraces Chie.

After the battle is over, Yukiko walks to the Shadow she created from her desire to escape. She apologizes for rejecting her earlier and hugs her Shadow, admitting that she's a part of herself. Yukiko's Shadow Self nodded, and she is reborn as her Persona, Konohana Sakuya.

Persona 4 Golden

 * Initial Persona: Konohana Sakuya
 * Ultimate Persona: Amaterasu
 * 3rd-Tier Ultimate Persona: Sume-Omikami

In Persona 4 Golden, the addition of bikes for the Investigation Team introduced a unique new way of obtaining skills for party members. By going on special forms of dates with each party member, involving the use of the bikes, the player is given the option of either having the party member in question learn a brand-new skill, or relearn any old skill that they have forgotten. The bike skills available to Yukiko are listed below.

Additionally, like with Rise Kujikawa in Persona 4, each party member is able to learn new skills upon the player's progression of their Social Link. The social link skills that Yukiko learns upon development of her Social Link are also listed below.

Persona 4 Arena
In the game's story mode, Yukiko has become a more accomplished chef, and when she learns that the Midnight Channel has returned, she hopes to show off her new cooking skills, and manages to befriend Labrys along the way. After Labrys departure, Yukiko goes shopping at Junes with Chie to look for accessories that suited Labyrs best before heading to Tatsumi Port Island see her again.

In Yukiko's gag ending, she has Teddie eat her boxed lunch, thinking it had healing properties (it actually made him sick). She decides to find the others, running into Yu in the process. After a short fight in which she wins, she violently force-feeds Yu the same boxed lunch, hoping it would help with healing him. The rest of the Investigation Team runs in, claiming the case was over, and as a celebratory gesture, she attempts to get them to eat her food. It is implied that she succeeded, since everyone ended up getting sick (she thinks it was possibly swine flu) and couldn't see each other for the rest of Golden Week.

Playstyle
Yukiko is a zoning character whose style of gameplay resemebles the regular Megami Tensei JRPGs: buffing and using magic while pestering enemies with projectiles. She is typically played at medium-to-long range, shutting down her opponent's approaches, and can attempt to get them off with her Furious Action, Dia, which will heal her. All the while, Yukiko needs to find opportunities to use Fire Boost/Amp to increase the damage from her Agi spells as well as look for unblockable setups with Fire Break. She is, however, severely limited at short range and heavily dependent on her Persona to maintain her defense and extend her offense. Thus a Persona Break is especially limiting as many of her primary options are lost.

Persona 4

 * Come! Konohana-Sakuya! (Enemy weak to attack/Critical with Phys skill)
 * Hear me, Amaterasu! (Enemy weak to attack/Critical with Phys skill)
 * I am thou... There! (Summoning Persona)
 * It's over! (Summoning Persona)
 * Persona! (Summoning Persona)
 * Come forth! (Summoning Persona)
 * It's so persistent! (Failure to eliminate enemy)
 * *sigh* I couldn't do it. (Failure to eliminate enemy)
 * Hang in there! (Recovering Ally's mental ailments)
 * Can you stand? (Recovering Ally's mental ailments)
 * I can still... do this! (Recovering from 'Down' status)
 * Our enemy is down! We must strike! (Prompting All-Out Attack)
 * Let's attack with all our strength! (Prompting All-Out Attack)
 * We have our chance! Are you ready? (Prompting All-Out Attack)
 * All right! (Performing All-Out Attack)
 * Ready, set! (Performing All-Out Attack)
 * Begone! (During All-Out Attack)
 * It will end here! (During All-Out Attack)
 * You are the leader! (After denying All-Out Attack)
 * Uhh... never mind. (After denying All-Out Attack)
 * Let me do this! (Prompting Follow-up attack)
 * Please, allow me! (Prompting Follow-up attack)
 * Steady... (Performing Follow-up attack)
 * Concentrate... (Performing Follow-up attack)
 * You're wide open! (Follow-up attack)
 * There! (Follow-up attack)
 * Did that do it? (Battle Won)
 * Whew... I broke a sweat! (Battle Won)
 * Please come again. *giggle* (Battle Won)
 * (sigh) There's no end to this! (Battle Won)
 * Ohh! Did I level up? (Level Up)
 * Have I gotten a little stronger? (Level Up)
 * *giggle* I leveled up! (Level Up)
 * *chuckle*, Don't lose your head! (cheering on Kanji)
 * Again! (cheering on Yosuke)
 * Wow, Yosuke-Kun! (cheering on Yosuke)

Persona 4 Arena

 * What do they mean by "Snow Black"? (in response to her title)
 * I'll finish you in one strike! (E3 trailer)
 * Too bad (while performing Dia by recovering some of her health)
 * Let this hit! (while peforming Maragi)
 * Okay focus! (while performing Fire Boost increasing fire attacks)
 * Brace yourself! (while performing Fire Break)
 * Controllable strength! (while performing Fire Amp)
 * I am thou... (while performing super move, Agidyne)
 * Body sides, flame dances! (while performing Awakening super move, Maragidyne)
 * Here comes the last moves... (Instant Kill)
 * My dear cherry blossoms...bloom in full splendor! (while Konohana-Sakuya is performing Instant Kill)

Trivia

 * Akiha Tohno (Seifuku)'s palette thirty in Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code references Yukiko. Coincidentally, Akiha's heat abilities parallel Yukiko's fire affinity.
 * As with Chie's character design being used in the inspiration of Maria Torres' character design in Trauma Team, Yukiko's character design was used for Tomoe Tachibana.